


A Long Way From Home

by MamaButts



Series: A Long Way [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Bondage, F/F, Forced Orgasm, Humiliation, Pearl martyrs herself because that's what she does, Porn With Plot, Rape/Non-con Elements, Worldbuilding, a rousing discussion of inorganic gem reproduction, correctional sex, dubcon, gem genitals, main Jaspearl with side Lapidot, side of a lot of things really, surprising amount of Peridot and she's a disaster always and forever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:55:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 19
Words: 141,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4572333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamaButts/pseuds/MamaButts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven did not manage to return to Beach City in ‘The Return.’ In an effort to save Steven and the Earth, a desperate agreement was made: Peridot was free to gather the fusion experiment data from the Kindergarten. Garnet and Amethyst (and unbeknownst to the Homeworld Gems, Steven) are allowed to remain on Earth unharmed. In return, however, Jasper takes Pearl back to Homeworld so she can report on what happened on Earth after the last Gem War and what became of Rose Quartz. But Jasper sees potential in that defective gem. It will take them several weeks to return to Homeworld, after all, and she needs something to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is illustrated. You can check out the illustrated version on my Tumblr: http://usuallybutts.tumblr.com/post/126676437717/title-a-long-way-from-home-author-usually-butts
> 
> *Attitude is the name of a ballerina pose

The scent of Earth’s atmosphere still clung to Pearl’s skin. She smelled of sand and ocean breeze, of rime and living dust and oils that she’d acquired from spending so long around organic living things. All those scents she took for granted for thousands of years would likely be the last sensations she ever had of Earth. She would no longer feel the grit of the beach between her fingers or hear the rustle of wind dancing between each and every blade of grass that lined the hilltops, and she certainly would never see Earth’s lush beauty ever again.

Peridot’s ship was a dead thing in comparison. It hummed and buzzed and droned around her and the air smelled of impersonal ozone. But then again, these were not unfamiliar sensations, for Pearl had been born to similar sounds and smells. It was like everything she remembered about Homeworld, even down to unrepentant humiliation of her very existence. 

After the battle, Pearl had been so drained, she didn’t put up that much of a fight when they stripped her down. Even when they shackled her in the most humiliating and vulnerable of ways, she let them do it. She made the choice. 

The bindings vibrated against her skin and felt as though they were tearing jagged seams in her limbs where electricity coursed in harsh lines. It would keep her grounded, prevent her from escaping her physical body to regenerate. The most basic tool of choice in which to torture a gem, Pearl knew, was a tool to keep them trapped. They could rend her apart limb by limb or strip her down to the next layer underneath just as they’d stripped her clothing. Or, if they were feeling kind, they might leave her skin on and keep her in one piece. But she was a pearl, and she knew what they did to pearls more often than not. She knew all this, was crying about it, but it did not change the way she felt: defiant, determined, relentless. Her fingers could still feel the weight of her spear long after they’d knocked it from her hands.

Earth must have been far away by then, because Jasper finally entered the chamber. Her head was low and predatory, but her eyes had lost their feral bite. She had won the battle, more or less, and seemed to be perfectly pleased about it. It was the kind of satisfaction exuded by spoiled children when they got their way. Completely unimpressed, not surprised in the least, but not about to relinquish the chance to gloat.

“Turning yourself over to me to save your friends was noble,” Jasper said, spitting the word as a mockery, not an honor. “You knew this would happen, but you did it anyway. Brave for a little pearl, so far from home.”

Pearl hated that she was crying. Hated that she could do nothing about it. Hated that her tongue was trapped behind the fabric of what used to be her sash, bound uncomfortably tight around her head and tied in a mocking bow at the back as though she was some present and hated that it prevented her from lashing back with retort. Hated that she could feel Jasper’s eyes sliding up her body to revel in the tears on her cheeks and only to slide all the way back down again. 

Jasper stepped ever-closer. She studied Pearl in her entirety; the vehemence in her eyes and her unique alive scent. It was all so very wrong. If Pearl had posed a more threatening image, she might have even been uncomfortable in her presence for no other reason than because she was so strange, affected. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been on Homeworld, hasn’t it?” It was a statement, a fact.

According to everything she knew about pearls, this one was terribly flawed. It was the worst she’d ever seen. Doubtlessly, once back on Homeworld, this pearl’s gem would be promptly crushed and processed in hopes something better could be made out of this mess that writhed before her. In the back of Jasper’s mind, however, it seemed a shame. Against all odds, this pearl fought well. She’d nearly taken Peridot’s head off back on Earth and that would have been amusing to see. She was also the best informant they had about what had taken place on Earth after the last war and likely knew more about Rose Quartz’s predicament than anyone else. She had been Rose’s pearl, after all. So as Jasper circled, she mused on the waste it would be not to at least try to make Pearl presentable by the time they got to Homeworld and, with enough effort, she might not be reduced to a pile of calcium carbonate dust the moment they stepped off the ship. They had a few weeks on the ship to at least try. 

Yes, Jasper would try. With a sigh, she announced as though it was the biggest inconvenience in the world, “We’ll have to break you in again. I can tell you haven’t been used in a long time.”

Pearl twisted in her _attitude*_ , listing to one side frantically before her restraints pulled her back upright. She knew it was coming. She knew, she knew, and yet it didn’t make it any easier when Jasper came closer, a hand with nails like claws reaching for the space between her legs. It was a warrior’s hand. Too big, too deft, and unkind. Nothing like Rose’s hands, nothing like Amethyst’s hands. Jasper knew how to crush and beat—Pearl had seen it, felt it—and no part of the behemoth before her embodied what it meant to _caress_ —

A high, thin, wounded noise left Pearl’s throat as two of Jasper’s fingers bullied their way inside her. Her eyes were wide, frightened. She could only hang in shock for a moment, disbelieving that this could even be happening until she was wrenched into reality once more as she felt those claws twist inside her.  
It hurt. It was clumsy. Uncaring, unfeeling, unwanted.

And yet...

Jasper pressed close, almost over-eager. Her other hand grasped and possessed, lifting the strain from Pearl’s arms for the first time. Pearl could feel the solidity of Jasper’s chest against her back, unnaturally warm like Garnet. Even Jasper’s fingers were warm, even inside her where they twisted. The pad of her thumb was warm where it brushed up against Pearl’s clit, searching at first, and then with more confidence once she felt Pearl’s body arch beneath her. Her thumb was impatient, the ruthless claw pressing against the tender hood of Pearl’s clit every time it circled. It was overwhelming. Everything about Jasper was too big and too much all at once and yet Pearl didn’t even have the voice to ask for mercy. It was stifling. Pearl couldn’t breathe.

The worst part was feeling her body respond. Where Jasper’s fingers had been rough and pulling, suddenly the movements were smoothed with slick. The folds of her cunt plumped and bloomed an intoxicating blue. And even the lightest trace of Jasper’s nail over her clit had Pearl jumping, breath hitching in her throat. It was everything she hated about being a pearl; the sickening obedience, sensitivity, the automatic response that revealed her as more machine than person.

“Feel that?” Jasper crooned somewhere behind her ear. “This is what you were made for. How long has it been since you’ve been put to good use?”

Fresh tears pricked at Pearl’s eyes. She wasn’t, she wasn’t. She wanted to pretend that the shrill, animalistic noises escaping her were nothing more than sobs, but she would have been wrong. She threw her head back as a third finger pushed in, stretching her open, invading. It didn’t matter that she rested her head on Jasper’s shoulder now, surrounded and engulfed by a river of white hair. She smelled of iron and salt. 

Pearl could feel the sharp contours of Jasper’s teeth against her neck. “Must have been a long time,” she said. Her voice rasped, jagged and raw, quiet in its intensity. “Because you’re coming shamefully fast. Even,” her fingers curled with a relentless finality, “for a pearl like you.”

And she was correct, of course. Pearl screamed as it approached her because it felt right. She was quivering as it overcame her, crushing and inescapable, like a malignance. It clung to her in reverence no matter how she tried to shake it off because Jasper’s fingers still worked her with every throb and shudder. Again and again, mercilessly squeezing out every last vestige of pleasure she could from Pearl’s release. Only when Pearl‘s thighs stopped trembling and her hips dropped in exhaustion did Jasper pause.

Pearl was dripping, now. A pool had formed in Jasper’s cupped palm, as if it existed solely to shame her. More fluid leaked down her thighs and freckled the floor. For a long moment, it was quiet but for the sound of their breathing. Pearl’s quick and shallow, Jasper’s deep and rattling.

Drained, Pearl let her head fall to the side. Her cheek pressed against more of that thick mane of hair, but past that, Jasper’s face was turned toward hers. She looked back, appraising with wild and hungry eyes.

“It looks like you could still be useful after all,” Jasper said after a long moment. She drew her fingers from Pearl’s cunt with a gratuitous, wet sound. Pearl’s body gave one, final throb in protest to her pulling away, which Jasper considered another good sign for the future. It was certainly flattering. Her hand was soaked in liquids both vicious and thin. 

Pearl’s shoulders felt strain once more as soon as Jasper released her and stepped away. It was too exhausting to even try to keep herself balanced on naught but her toes anymore, so she just wilted there like a marionette on tangled strings. 

“If your friends could see you now, I’m sure they would be proud,” Jasper said. 

Pearl didn’t know whether it was meant to be encouraging or cruel, nor did she care. She didn’t want to imagine what Garnet or Amethyst would think. She didn’t want them to see her like this. With her head turned down and eyes closed against a torrent of silent tears, she waited for Jasper to grow bored of watching her and leave. 

Eventually, she did.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot has arrived. Read this chapter with illustrations on Tumblr here: http://usuallybutts.tumblr.com/post/127254158017/title-a-long-way-from-home-pairings-main-pairing

It had been a long week. Twice a day Jasper appeared at the door to Pearl’s chamber, a routine sown of staunch inevitability. Twice a day Pearl’s aching arms and shoulders earned reprieve when Jasper gathered her up, and it almost felt like she was being cradled if not for the irreverent claws that sunk into her. 

She probably only lifted her because she was tall and Pearl was short and Jasper could ram her fingers in better when she wasn’t bending down. Cold thoughts like those entered Pearl’s mind during the short interims between one release and the next. Jasper was nothing if not thorough, stubborn, and insistent upon pushing her past her breaking point. The first session had been one orgasm. Then the next session Jasper’s hasty fingers dragged two from her. Then three. And past that point, it grew difficult to keep the numbers straight in her head, but Pearl was fairly certain Jasper kept an infuriating tally. Perhaps she hummed it in Pearl’s ear in the midst of it all.

It was exhausting. It was aggravating. The release was pleasure, but the rest of it was fraught with humiliation and discomfort and once her initial feelings of mortification wore off, it became actually downright tedious. Somewhere between orgasm seven and eight on the sixth morning, Pearl even slammed her heel down into Jasper’s thigh in frustration. Though it did no damage, it got her point across, and Jasper laughed, amused, when she finally let her go. 

When she returned in the evening, Jasper still wore a rueful expression when she approached. “Come on. Don’t be like that. Are you still mad at me?”

Behind the gag and the hair falling into her eyes, Pearl’s expression made it quite clear that she was always angry at Jasper.

Jasper simply clicked her tongue as she ran her hands up Pearl’s hips, as if courting an obstinate lover. “Come on,” she coaxed with saccharine mockery. “You’re getting tired. Is that it? I’m working you too hard?”

As two fingers reached down to spread her cunt open, Pearl let her head roll back on her shoulders. The exasperation in the groan that accompanied the gesture made Jasper pause. It was a terrible and ominous silence that settled between them then and Pearl could feel Jasper’s heat close to her throat.

“Do you want your gem crushed the moment you step off this ship?” she asked, lips parted to flash a row of savage teeth. 

It took a moment for Pearl to understand that she wasn’t being rhetorical and was actually waiting for an answer. Pearl shook her head.

“Is obedience your natural state?”

Pearl nodded.

“Then act like it.”

Pearl did not outwardly complain again.

 

* * *

 

The sound of footsteps on the ship walkways became a familiar, albeit dreaded, part of daily life. But Jasper wasn’t the only inhabitant of the ship; there were two others that wandered the hallways on a daily basis. At first it was a game born of boredom to listen for footsteps and guess who approached before they crossed the open threshold of the chamber (there was no door). It became less of a game once it Pearl realized their footsteps were so unique that it was hardly difficult to tell.

Jasper’s gait was quick, lunging, and heavy. Pearl could hear her approach from the other end of the ship most days, and it was never very welcomed. 

Peridot’s steps were uneven, as though she often paused or suddenly remembered something important in the middle of her travels and half-decided to turn down another hallway before second-guessing that decision anyway. When she ran, it sounded like tin soup cans being thrown down a flight of stairs. She was louder, even, than Jasper.

The other one, however, was not so easy to discern. Lapis, the gem from the mirror, was the most elusive one and Pearl couldn’t quite figure out what she was doing here. She was like a ghost most days, for she was either non-existent or she sometimes appeared out of the corner of Pearl’s eye, peeking around the doorframe to peer into the chamber where Pearl was kept dangling before disappearing entirely. Sometimes, if Pearl was quiet, she could make out her footsteps; there was only the soft whisper of bare feet on metal. The sounds were fleeting, if they were even there at all. 

The game became, then, to see if she could listen hard enough to hear when Lapis approached. Perhaps then Pearl would be ready to meet her eyes when she glanced around the doorframe. Perhaps it would teach her to stop being nosy. Pearl did not particularly enjoy being ogled. 

Peridot’s footsteps approached on morning eight, as indecisive as ever. She hovered back and forth and back and forth out in the hallway until, most unusually, she turned into the chamber instead of continuing down the wing. “Ugh,” she wrinkled her nose as she approached. “You reek of Jasper.”

Likely Pearl reeked of a lot of things. There was a week’s worth of dried fluids streaked down her leg and on the inside of her thighs. It felt like it was all over her where Jasper’s sopping fingers wandered her body, through her hair, across her lips. Finger-shaped bruises outlined her hips and stippled around her breasts, standing as testament to just how much Jasper liked to touch. And how firmly, too. Her cunt remained spread and swollen from the last time Jasper’s fingers had been in her, tender to the chill of cool air Peridot swept with her when she stepped close.

“The stabilizers are working nicely. I expect you don’t even notice them anymore.” Peridot studied the cuffs binding Pearl’s arms and leg with a clinical interest. Then, somewhat unexpectedly, she reached up with one digit and tugged the gag from between Pearl’s lips. It settled around her neck, pasted there unpleasantly with saliva.

Pearl didn’t know quite what to do without the gag. To shout and demand that they unhand her and take her back to Earth was foolish and counterintuitive. She chose to be here. She’d made peace with it. She wouldn’t have let them take her back if they tried, because as long as they were content in hauling her back to Homeworld as a prize, it meant Earth and Steven were safe. So no amount of protest made sense to her. She simply ran her tongue over chapped lips and eased her aching jaw closed.

It wasn’t long before Peridot’s fingers rearranged themselves, producing a holographic screen that cast a dull green light over her skin. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

The screen created a barrier between them, making it difficult to see Peridot’s face anymore, but she looked as though she could have been squinting at some projected numbers. She sounded bored. “We made an agreement with your leader before we left. Part of the agreement was that we provide them with proof you’re still alive. I’m doing just that.”

For the world, Pearl couldn’t remember that being part of the agreement, but then again, she hadn’t been present for all of the arrangements these Homeworld gems had made with Garnet. Not mentally, not physically. It seemed like a very Garnet thing to request of them, however. Garnet cared, she really, really did...

It was about then that Pearl saw her own image flicker up on the screen, albeit distorted and backwards from her position. She understood, in a moment of pure revulsion, just how Peridot planned on doing this. “Stop,” she cried out. “I don’t want them to see me like—”

“I’m already recording,” Peridot monotoned. “And it’s being broadcasted as we speak. So I suggest you keep quiet.”

In the upper right corner of Peridot’s screen was the image of Pearl stripped and defeated, and it was this image they were sending back to Garnet and Amethyst. It wasn’t enough, then, that Pearl submitted, but the others had to endure the shame, too, didn’t they? This was how Homeworld treated their rebels and traitors: they made examples of the ones they could and strung them up before the rest as a warning. 

Pearl didn’t want them to see her like this. They’d never had to see her like this before—like a pearl. But it was already happening and she hadn’t even gotten the chance to chase away the rattled look in her eye or dab the saliva from her chin. She looked exactly how Jasper wanted her to look: a victim, an illustration of what happened to those who crossed her path. Through the backwards frames of Peridot’s recording, Pearl could barely even recognize herself.  She tilted her head in some desperate hope that if she didn’t look, they wouldn’t be able to see her, either.

“Dear Crystal Gems,” was Peridot’s trite opening to the broadcast. “As per our agreement, I am here demonstrating the very alive nature of your comrade. As you can see, her—mf.” Peridot had to stretch in order to reach up and turn Pearl’s head to face forward again. She was not kind about it. “As you can see, her gem is intact. There are no cracks or scratches. Not even a scuff.” She brought the screen close, allowing a thorough examination of the gem. Despite all Pearl had been through, it was the one pristine thing left, deliberately so. 

Pearl met the dim glow of the screen with a thousand yard stare, determined not to glance at the rolling video feed in the corner. She didn’t want to know what she looked like. She didn’t want to see what Garnet and Amethyst had to look at back on Earth.

“Jasper says that rehabilitation is possible,” Peridot continued in that detached drawl of hers. She controlled the screen with a minute gesture; it began scrolling down Pearl’s body. The feed rolled across the dark bruises at her breasts, the claw-shaped marks on her hips, the timid, ravished flesh of her cunt. Peridot moved with it, circling around Pearl’s body. It would have felt predatory if Peridot hadn’t been doing everything in her power to remain disconnected, supercilious. “As you can see, we have been working diligently towards future reintegration of your pearl. You should be thanking us, really. Our techniques have been plentiful and relentless.” 

Peridot prowled at her back. The creeping sensation of being examined caused Pearl to stiffen. Her breath caught in her throat just in time to feel a digit press against the flesh of her ass, spreading her. Exposing her. Pearl felt the heat on her cheeks rise.

“Though there are a few techniques we haven’t yet tried...”

It was maddening. All this, and what made her stomach clench most was imagining what Garnet and Amethyst were thinking in this moment. Their frustration, their hopelessness. They would feel the acute sting of failure; perhaps they would even question whether or not they’d done the right thing. But they had—this was right. This was how it had to be to keep safe everything they’d been fighting for. She couldn’t let them feel like they’d failed. Pearl could not keep her silence. “I’m okay,” she said. Her voice sounded high and thin. Weak.

Peridot paused, an intrigued expression flashing behind the hologram. 

The video feed continued to roll, but for how long it would last, Pearl did not know. She forced the words out, needing Garnet and Amethyst to understand, if only a little bit. “I’m going to be fine. Please just take care of St—take care of the Earth. This isn’t so bad. ”

The screen was shaking. Peridot could only contain her amusement for so long before she burst out in raking laughter. For a few seconds, the video feed tilted to the ground as she doubled over, a lapse in her broadcasting duties. When she finally straightened back up, she turned the screen to record her own face instead. “See, she likes it,” Peridot mocked. “Perhaps reintegration will be easier than we thought. It looks like it takes more than a few thousand years away from Homeworld to eliminate the baseless compliance from your pearl after all. And here I was a skeptic.” She laughed again and her face edged out of frame as she tilted the screen haphazardly.

A crushing well of shame pressed upon Pearl’s chest. For one terrible moment, Peridot’s derision made her doubt whether she should have spoken at all. But no. Silence was the most elementary form of compliance. She would not be compliant. Not truly. Perhaps Pearl had never been in all her life. But she could make them think she was; she would survive that way. She had done it before and she would do it now, even if there was no Rose Quartz at the end of this road to take her to safety. 

“Well, there you have it. We’ve honored our end of the agreement. So say goodbye for now, Crystal Gems.” Peridot pushed the screen closer, focusing in on Pearl’s face once more. “Say ‘goodbye,’ Pearl.”

It was an order. So Pearl whispered, “Goodbye.” And for the first time, it felt as though she was really speaking directly to Garnet and Amethyst. 

With a flick of Peridot’s finger, the video feed ended and her digits shuffled back into an arrangement resembling a hand. She was outright delighted. “You are just hilarious, you know that? ‘Just take care of Earth. This isn’t so bad,’” she mimicked Pearl’s voice, pitching her own up much higher than necessary. “I’ll have to go tell Jasper. She’s going to do flips. Perhaps she’ll be less insufferable if she has something to smile about.” Still snickering as though she’d made the best joke in the galaxy, she turned and marched toward the door. Her footsteps carried with aggravating staccato the entire way. But as soon as she turned the corner into the hallway, they stopped abruptly. “Ugh! What are you doing here?” she said to someone Pearl couldn’t see. “Can’t you go find somewhere less annoying to loiter?” 

It must have been Lapis, for a quiet argument ginned up in the hallway outside and Pearl couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but whatever was going on clearly didn’t involve Jasper. Jasper wasn’t much for quiet arguments, nor would Peridot have been so free with her insults.

Whatever it was about, it ended quickly enough. There were some exasperated noises, but they grew faint as Lapis and Peridot meandered away. 

Pearl released a heavy breath she felt she’d been holding for several minutes now. She had a new game to play, now. Rehabilitation. Reintegration.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis Lazuli has something to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read the illustrated version on Tumblr here: http://usuallybutts.tumblr.com/post/127970932137/title-a-long-way-from-home-pairings-jaspearl

“Well, look at you,” Jasper said as she strode into the chamber that evening. “Peridot took your gag off. How does that feel?”

It didn’t seem like Jasper was expecting an actual response, for she didn’t even look up to meet Pearl’s eyes, but Pearl had been practicing her line all day. “I am ready to comply,” she said. It was deliberate. It was calm.

Jasper paused, a look of confusion chasing the shock that sparked in her expression. Frowning, she appeared to be studying Pearl much more intently now, as if searching for something; a lie, perhaps. Whatever it was, she apparently didn’t find it. She finally smiled, self-satisfaction oozing from her. “Peridot told me you behaved yourself today. I had no idea you were progressing so fast. You should have told me,” she laughed, tugging at the gag that still hung around Pearl’s neck.

It wasn’t long before Jasper entitled herself to touch. It never did take long. She pressed a hand in-between Pearl’s legs, and for a moment, Pearl expected her to grab her like a vice. But she didn’t. Instead, Jasper smoothed her fingers over the aching and distressed petals of her quim. She gave them a few pats, like one would reward a pet. “Look at you,” she said, “Poor thing. I bet you’re sore.”

Pearl nodded. She was. Her breath hitched with each jolt of Jasper’s hand against her. “You’re very...strong.”

That comment seemed to please Jasper. It also served as a reminder, for the taps became noticeably gentler after that. “I know. But I can be nice, too. Do you want to see?” Those fingers merely soothed now. Long strokes, languid. They promised kindness.

“Yes,” Pearl tried to say. The word got caught in the back of her throat, so she had to repeat, gasping, “ _Yes_.”

She did not expect Jasper to kneel before her, nor did she expect the warm balm of a tongue slipping between the folds where those fingers still roamed. She also did not expect her body to bow towards the sensation instead of away. It was a very confusing moment, made even more confusing by the whimper that leapt from her chest unbidden.

Jasper cradled her. Her arms wrapped under Pearl’s thighs, her hands supported her back and moved with her every time she arched and breathed and shivered there. Jasper held her like she weighed nothing at all, pulled her closer until Pearl could feel the frame of Jasper’s jaw against the bone of her own pelvis. Suddenly Jasper was pressing hard and rough again, but because her tongue darted out to court the pining bud of her clit, Pearl could forgive her that. And she could forgive her over and over again if she needed to, she decided.

The mistake was looking down. Unnatural yellow eyes stared up at her from the dark. They glowed with challenge.

Pearl tried to look away, to tilt her head back and stare at the ceiling, but Jasper reached up to grab the sash still hung about her neck and pulled until she was forced to tilt her head back down. She stared past her own heaving chest and into those eyes, and she could have sworn she felt orgasm’s antagonizing snarl rumble at the back of her neck right then and there. Pearl’s breath rattled faster, thighs twitching with every lash of that tongue.

A cry was ripped from her. It sounded like pain, it looked like pain, and yet it was anything but. In return, Jasper answered with a growl of her own; it vibrated into the cage of Pearl’s hips, snaked up her belly, and up into her throat where it manifested into yet another sob. Jasper’s retort was a visceral hum. And like this, they spoke to each other in some parody of conversation or maybe it was some bitter lover’s song Pearl remembered from a long time back. She sang her heart out, though, and when it was time for her to come, she rocked her hips down against Jasper’s seeking mouth and gifted her with hard-won surrender.

She shivered, lost in the throes of her release as Jasper pulled away. Zealous lips glistened with Pearl’s slick, her tongue lazily swept over her teeth. Jasper broke the seal of silence first. “Compliance is nice, isn’t it?” she breathed.

Feeling expectant eyes on her, Pearl nodded once. So nice, so very nice.

Jasper chuckled. Her fingers ran in circles around Pearls hips and down her flanks in a race across flesh until they finally dipped through the slippery folds of Pearl’s quim and came out the other side shiny and victorious. Jasper rubbed her fingers together as if it were a fine fabric and then licked them clean with nothing short of delight.

Pearl had to press her lips together to keep unbecoming noises from wringing out of her throat. Her cunt pulsed around phantom fingers regardless. It was jarring.  
“I think I’ll have Lapis clean you up. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Jasper picked herself up and dabbed fluid from around her mouth with the back of her hand. There was the remnant of something hungry in her eyes.

“Yes,” Pearl said.

“Yes; you deserve as much.” She reached out with one hand and grabbed for Pearl’s face. Her palm cupped her jaw easily, small in comparison, even. It was designed to crush, Pearl remembered thinking in the moment. Jasper could have crushed her right then and there, gem and all. But she did not. She only ran her thumb across Pearl’s parted lips, painting her in a light coating of her own slick and savoring the hot breath that brushed past her palm. She traced over Pearl’s mouth again with her thumbnail then, dragging it over top and bottom in a spiraling circle. It was a long moment of fixation between them; Jasper unable to break her gaze from Pearl’s lips and Pearl serenely passive in receiving the odd attention until Jasper had abused those lips into a vibrant blue blush.

Abruptly, Jasper pulled her hand away as though she’d been bitten and took several steps back. Perhaps she hadn’t realized she’d been staring. Whatever intimacy that moment cultivated all but wilted when she turned and left without another word.

Pearl got the distinct feeling that she was Jasper’s pet project. And yet, despite the disgusting prospect of such a thing, she was relieved. She might live to see Homeworld and possibly live long enough to leave it once more someday.

 

* * *

 

 For the second time that day, Peridot turned the corner and stomped her way into Pearl’s room, except this time, she was not alone. Trailing behind her like a specter was Lapis. Her dress flowed around her knees as if dancing in non-existent air currents.

“It’s like hitting a wall of Jasper every time I walk in here,” Peridot complained. She eyed the fresh glisten that adorned the plump, aroused folds of Pearl’s cunt with revulsion. “Thank the stars she’s finally going to let us clean up this mess. Isn’t the smell the worst?”

Lapis said nothing. She lingered behind, watching Pearl with a detached interest.

Pearl gazed back, apprehensive. She had to wonder how much Lapis had told these other gems about what she knew of Earth. Her imprisonment there, her rescue, her rescuer. Had they made her confess the details, dragged it out of her under threat of torture? Had she flitted from one cage and right into the bars of the next? But as she mused more upon their unfortunate circumstance, it began to make more sense. And then Pearl began to recognize the way in which Lapis looked at her. It was barely concealed malice with a fine dusting of disgust layered over top. She looked at Pearl as a shrike gazed upon a beetle. Pearl had been caught, impaled, and feasted upon. She wore the raking marks of acacia thorns all down her hips.

Worst of all, Pearl thought to herself, was that Lapis looked at her like she _deserved_ it.

Oblivious to the tension in the room, Peridot bustled forth with her hologram screen. Symbols flashed as she attempted to find a signal. “Jasper has cleared you for removal of the stabilizers,” she said, refusing to look up from her screen as she held her conversation. “But don’t think this is an invitation to roam freely around my ship. You will have an escort wherever you go. We can find plenty more uncomfortable positions to hang you up in if you start taking your liberties.” With that warning, Peridot dispatched the shackles with the mere press of a button. They disappeared with a buzz of scattering electricity.

Without anything to hold her suspended, Pearl collapsed. Everything inch of her felt stiff and frail the moment she hit solid ground. Her hands were numb and she found she couldn’t move her fingers from where they were curled inertly against her palm. Entire pieces of her felt like they wanted to break off in shards. Her projection hiccupped, sending everything out of alignment for one terrible moment and Pearl prepared for her body to dissipate so she could retreat to her gem one more.

But she didn’t. She didn’t. She was still trapped here, clinging to the weight of this body and it didn’t want to let her go. A flutter of panic welled inside her chest.

Curled on the ground, Pearl’s projection hitched once more.

“That happens sometimes,” Peridot said, sounding annoyed. “Must have calibrated it wrong the first time. I forget you pearls are all so weak.”

From somewhere further away, Lapis spoke up. “Is it permanent?”

Peridot waved it off. “It will wear off in a minute. Mm, but I should go look into this. In case we have to stabilize her again.” She looked down at Pearl’s faltering form, frowning. “Which is likely. Lapis, stay here and do what Jasper ordered. I have to go look up the calibration manual again...” Muttering something about software updates, Peridot made her exit.

As unlikely as it was, Pearl found she rather would have liked Peridot to stay. Because now it was just her and Lapis and suddenly the entire atmosphere around them seemed to shift. Hostility prickled in the silence. Slowly, Pearl managed to lift her head.

Lapis was already standing over her. “It’s not so nice being imprisoned, is it?” she said with all the serenity one expected when looking into the eye of a storm.

“Lapis, please,” Pearl breathed. Peridot was gone, but she didn’t know for how long. She had to make Lapis understand while she had the chance. “You have to believe me when I say I didn’t know you were in that mirror.”

“Lies. You knew.”

It occurred to Pearl that this could be the end of her. Perhaps the reason Lapis lingered around her chamber was because she was waiting for a time to slip in and exact her revenge. How easy it would have been to pay Pearl back for the millennia of her own imprisonment. She could have cracked Pearl’s gem when Jasper was looking the other way, shattered it to dust. She could have found Pearl her very own mirror and trapped her inside and been perfectly justified to do so. There were a hundred anguishes Pearl conceived of in that mere second; there was no telling what Lapis had machinated after thousands of years of isolation and captivity.

“I...I knew the mirror was powered with a gem, but it was so cracked, I...I thought. I didn’t think there was any way you had _survived_ in there. I thought you must have been dead! Just some residual memories and capabilities, I...” Come to think of it, though, Pearl hadn’t _actually_ thought very much on the subject. When Rose had given her that mirror, she had stored it away without even questioning whether or not it could have still contained a functioning gem. She’d just assumed. And she’d assumed so incorrectly it made her insides churn.

When she looked up, Lapis’s arms were raised over her. With naught but a twitch of her fingers, she drew tendrils of water from her gem. They snaked up her arms and around her wrists, sealing flesh behind liquid gauntlets.

This was it. Lapis found her opportunity and Pearl was confident she was going to have the life wrung out of her without even making it to Homeworld. She dragged herself to her hands and knees, determined to at least put up a fight. “I’m _sorry_ , Lapis,” she said. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry I didn’t _think_ —” She could have apologized all day, but Pearl knew she didn’t have that time. Words tumbled out of her. “Just please don’t take this out on Steven. He helped you; _please don’t let them hurt him._ ”

At the mention of Steven, Lapis stopped.

Granted a few more moments of reprieve, Pearl rushed to continue. “He helped you. Punish me as you see fit, but promise me you’ll help him. Protect him. He’s just a child.”

“Punish you? Pearl...” Lapis crouched. Even with her arms tucked around her knees, she appeared regal. Something almost like pity crossed her face. “I don’t need to do that.”

Pearl was taken aback. She wasn’t sure she understood what was happening; by all means, it made no sense. So far, everyone on this ship wanted nothing more than to see her made an example of and she had expected Lapis to want the same. If anything, Lapis had more cause to want Pearl to suffer than the rest of them. She had been bound to a mirror and trapped inside Pearl’s gems for thousands of years, after all, and considering such an intimate form of captivity, Lapis should have hated her for it. _Should_ have.

With a renewed sense of hope, Pearl shuffled closer. Her arms still didn’t quite want to work and the projection of her fingers still jolted as she slid them along the tile of the floor, but it didn’t matter now. She had found an ally here. “Lapis, I—”

Lapis cut her off. There was something condescending about the way she tilted her head when she met Pearl’s eyes. “I don’t need to punish you, because they’re going to do all of that for me, Pearl. They’re going to drag you back to Homeworld soil and imprison you in that decrepit nursery where pearls like you belong. You’ll incubate. You’ll go mad like the rest of them. And there’s nothing,” she hushed with innocence stitched into every callous word, “nothing I can do to make any of that worse for you. I am perfectly content in just watching it happen.”

It was like watching all the stars in the sky flicker to black. Whatever response Pearl could have given simply caught in her throat and died there as she stared back into Lapis’s eerily placid eyes. The dissonance between her sweet expression and her words had Pearl running back through the last few moments in her head, almost unwilling to believe she had heard such denigration from that cherubic face.

Without anything more, Lapis reached out and cupped Pearl’s head in both her hands. The cool ebb and flow of water soothed the cuts along her jawline and cleansed her of the grime that lingered there. It was a gentle touch, and once again Lapis gazed upon her with pity.

The crumpled gag came off next and was tossed aside. “Close your eyes,” Lapis whispered.

Pearl obeyed. She sat in dazed silence as Lapis drew her hands over her face. One of her thumbs rubbed at a particularly stubborn smudge of dirt on her forehead. Her fingers raked down Pearl’s scalp when she wet her hair, drawing on wisps of water to strip each tress from root to tip. It was a strange feeling. It was also profoundly intimate, for when Pearl opened her eyes again, Lapis was leaning close to her, studying her face. Likely she was simply surveying her work to make sure she hadn’t missed any grime, but it felt like a lover’s betrayal.

Abandoned droplets of water beaded on Pearl’s neck and collarbone as Lapis moved downwards. Her fingers did not touch, but the water encasing her fingers did, creating the strange sensation of being caressed by a phantom. This served as the barrier between them; keeping them separate entities. Pearl on one side of the flowing water, Lapis on the other. It worked well enough and still pacified the bruises that danced in rings about Pearl’s breasts.

She sat up straighter, presented herself fully to Lapis. The movement must have been unexpected, because for a brief, graceless moment, one of Lapis’s knuckles brushed up against Pearl’s breast and they both tensed. The barrier was broken. They watched each other for a long moment, frozen in time.

It was Lapis who moved again first. This time, it was the tips of her fingers that broke the barrier and marked out a trail on Pearl’s skin, coursing from the base of her ribcage all the way up. Those fingers hitched over the swell and dip of every rib until they met the gentle slope of the underside of Pearl’s breasts and continued to rise with the grace of her flesh until they skimmed over her nipples and finally drifted off into the night as though they’d never been there at all.

Pearl released the breath she’d been holding the whole time in a single, shuddering rush.

“I can see why Jasper likes you,” Lapis mused.

Water moved with patience over Pearl’s skin once more. Methodical, purging. Lapis did not make another attempt to touch her as she started working on one of her arms.

Pearl was watchful all the while. Peridot had not returned, and still so much needed to be said. She wasn’t sure Lapis quite understood or cared about the gravity of the situation yet and she needed the comfort of that reassurance. Lapis may have hated her and wanted to see her ruined, but not every fiber of her heart had hardened like leather. There was still a tenderness there hidden beneath the ash. “You’ve contacted Steven before,” Pearl spoke. “Will you do it again?”

Lapis did not look up from her work. “I don’t know.”

It was a frustrating response, steeped in tell-tale avoidance. This time, Pearl shifted on her knees until Lapis couldn’t avoid her pressing eyes. “Promise you’ll contact him if Homeworld strikes out for Earth again, Lapis. If you care about Steven at all, you’ll do that for him.”

Her gaze flickered to the doorway, furtive. “I could be caught. Last time, I almost was. I don’t need to make my situation worse.”

“Please. Lapis,” Pearl whispered, “he thinks you’re his friend.”

“I _am_ , I just—” The water encasing her hands rattled as she struggled. An agonized noise ripped from her. Pearl watched Lapis’s expression flicker like a turntable of masks spiraling out of control. Anger, grief, desperation, longing, fear, warmth, and finally a weary, bitter acceptance.  She let her hands drop to her sides. “I will,” she said at last. “I’ll protect him. But not for you. I’ll only do it for him.”

Pearl could breathe again at last. “Yes. Thank you.”

Amnesty settled over them. Lapis washed away the most grievous evidence of Pearl’s exploitation with a stoic sense of duty and Pearl accepted it for what it was. She raised her arms without being told, spread her legs so purifying water could slip between them and erase a week’s worth of shame. Though she initially buckled when she felt a bract of water bloom inside of her, she was grateful for it. It carried away the unclean feeling from even her core and she silently thanked Lapis for being thorough in her benevolence. When she was finished, the miserable streaks of old release had been swept away and only sweet drops of dew clung to her thighs now.

Lapis cleansed the floor of dried spend while Pearl found her legs again. She still did not feel completely normal, but she could stand at the very least. And what a freedom standing was. Never before had she been thankful for her own bodily autonomy so dearly as she was now. For so long she had taken it for granted, but it only took a handful of days being restrained to remind her that freedom sometimes manifested in the smallest of ways.

Peridot’s return was prematurely announced by the sound of loud footsteps from down the hall. “Oh good, you’re finished,” she said as the last of the water was drawn back up into Lapis’s gem. Pearl was granted nothing more than an up-and-down glance of assessment. “It’s an improvement,” she admitted, “but put some clothes on. Jasper wants you both at the bridge. We have a report to write and since you’re being so complaint now, I think you might actually be of some use to us.”

The stabilizers had prevented Pearl from accessing her gem earlier, and she half-expected nothing to happen when she reached up to her forehead and closed her eyes. For a fraction of a second, her initial instinct was to summon her spear.

Summon her spear. Take these two out quickly—Lapis first, because she was the biggest threat of the two, Peridot second before she could call for help—and then find Jasper. She could play it coy and compliant at first, and while Jasper impaled her with her fingers, Pearl would return the favor in kind with her blade. The look of shock that would cross Jasper’s face the split second before she retreated to her gem would be worth Pearl spreading her legs for her again. She could take the ship, turn it around and—

—and wait for Homeworld to send even more gems to Earth the moment this ship went missing.

Pearl summoned her clothing. Her sash hugged her waist as though it missed being there instead of shoved between her lips. She folded her fingers in front of her, a meek gesture. Ever-compliant. Ever-obedient.

“Come on. And stay where I can see you.” Peridot ushered Pearl in front of her with a wave of her arm, but then caught sight of Lapis where she stood with her back hugging a corner as if she’d much prefer to melt into it and disappear. “And you. You have to come, too.”

It was a largely unhappy caravan that that traveled down the ship’s long hallways together. But as Pearl passed rows of tall windows and stared into the gaping maw of space beyond, she could only feel relief in recognizing that Earth was very, very far away.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Compliance is rewarded.

The ship was larger than Pearl had imagined. An extensive network of hallways projected from a central hub and radiated off in each and every direction like the spokes of a wheel. How Peridot knew exactly which hallways to lead them through was a mystery, barring the possibility that she had some sort of built-in guidance system. Whatever it was that kept her oriented, it certainly didn’t require her attention. She bickered with Lapis the whole way.

“Well, I’m not going to.”

“Take it out of your report,” Lapis warned. “I mean it.”

Peridot didn’t even deign to look over at her. “Make me.”

“You’re being childish,” Lapis said. “You know the only reason you’re keeping that section in is because you know it’s going to make it look like I had something to do with it. I didn’t and you know that.”

“I know that you could get in a lot of trouble for suggesting I tamper with information I’ve already had processed,” Peridot sing-songed.

Beneath their feet, the ship’s core hummed. Pearl did not particularly relish in having to walk between these two. They continuously had to lean forward so as to spout vitriol at each other, as if Pearl was a mere barrier. She felt rather bombarded from both sides.

“You know what? One day you’re going to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I’m going to watch with delight as they bring their fists down on you.”

“Is that a threat?”

“If I say it is, would that get you to stop being such an arrogant catastrophe?”

“Me? You come onto my ship—”

“Oh, like I was politely invited? Like they sent me a cordial missive and I could respond at my leisure?”

Peridot took an exaggerated breath, as though she was winding up for a particularly withering response, but then they turned the corner into the control room and whatever grand retort she’d concocted died in her throat the moment she saw Jasper. Lapis, too, sealed her lips because she knew what was good for her.

Jasper sat perched in the seating area adjacent to the controls. She sat with her knees stationed as far apart from each other as she damn well pleased, clearly not shy about taking up space. A full two thirds of the couch she sat on was occupied by her body alone, while one of her arms draped over the back of the remaining third. She appeared very comfortable like that. She did not, however, appear pleased to see them. “Will you two ever stop squabbling?” she said. “It’s just noise from the both of you, constantly. Pointless noise.”

And then Jasper’s eyes fell on Pearl. Pearl got the distinct, anxious feeling she was about to get yelled at too, but no additional scorn came her way. Instead, Jasper reached a hand out toward her. “And look what we have here. How does it feel to be out and about, Pearl?”

Pearl wasn’t so sure she liked being addressed by her name. It felt simultaneously too familiar and too condescending. “It feels fine,” she replied. The words felt like thin wisps of insincerity leaving her, packaged and sent in nothing but modest brown paper and string.

Nevertheless, that response seemed to please Jasper immensely. She sent Peridot and Lapis a pointed look. “See what can be accomplished with a little time and effort? And less arguing over pointless garbage?”

So Pearl was reduced to a successful pet project, then; a testament to Jasper’s own greatness. But that was fine, she reminded herself. That was good. Let Jasper take pride in all she thought she’d achieved.

Jasper still had her arm reaching toward her. Pearl had all but ignored it up until that point, not sure what to make of it until Jasper apparently got tired of waiting for her to catch on and curled an impatient finger at her. Beckoning.

Oh.

So she was not only a pet project, but she was also a pet, expected to heel when commanded to do so.

The first step Pearl took towards Jasper was stiff, as though her femur caught in its socket halfway through the motion. The next was easier, though. It was almost mechanical how effortlessly she fell into it. Hands folded demurely, Pearl let Jasper guide her down into the seat next to her. She sat with her knees pressed together and her back willfully straightened to avoid the large arm draped behind her. The two of them took up an entire couch when slotted beside one another.

Jasper was curious, she could tell. From the way her fingers went to the front of Pearl’s shirt to pluck at the star there to the way she leaned in shamelessly close to study her every plane and angle, there was a beastly inquisitiveness about her. For once, it seemed entirely innocent, but it was still a little rude. Bad manners. Pearl tried to ignore it.

Peridot and Lapis sat down as well, though they chose to sit as far away from one another as possible.

“Since we have our two Earth gems here and willing to participate,” Peridot said, “I think this is a good time to flesh out our report on our recent mission. A very successful mission, I might add.”

“Go on, then. Ask your questions.” Jasper looked down at Pearl. “You’ll answer the questions, won’t you?”

Pearl had to tilt her chin to look back up at her. “I will.”

Green light filtered upon them as Peridot’s fingers unfurled the projection of a screen. She began scrolling through what looked to be a rather extensive amount of data. “Let’s see here. Lapis has already confirmed the continued presence of humans on Earth. What more can you tell us about humans?”

They had already spoken to Lapis, then. Pearl glanced over at her, apprehension rising in her chest. When it came to Steven, she knew far too much.

But Peridot was waiting for her answer. She had to start somewhere, so she reached back into her thousands of years of extensive observation of humans and presented to them exactly what they wanted to hear. “Humans are the dominant species on the planet Earth,” Pearl began. “They are carbon-based life forms that exhibit a number of advanced social behaviors. There is the capacity for more advanced technological achievement as well, but their limitations as a species are numerous and crippling. They largely rely on a complex metabolic process for energy, a process which is unsustainable as it eventually leads to the degradation of their organic bodies and, as a result, they live pathetically short lives, spanning only an average of seventy to eighty years. They have no inherent defense mechanisms. Their vulnerabilities are too numerable to count. They are weak. They lack—” Pearl’s breath caught in her chest before she could utter anything more. Dysphoria wrenched at her as she realized what it was she had just said. Of course she was telling them all what they wanted to hear: humans were pitiable and Earth was worthless but for further gem cultivation. It came too easily to her to say these things, and now as she sat here, Pearl could feel Rose’s eyes at her back. Her disappointment. She was committing the worst betrayal if she failed to acknowledge all that Rose had taught her. So Pearl took her breath and began again. “They...they’re so small,” she said. “But they’re beautiful. Each and every individual is special. If Homeworld would just look at it for a moment, they would see that Earth is a special place. It should not be destroyed. Humans are...different, but they have value. I believe this.”

Peridot met her with derision. She peered over the rim of her screen. “Earth is a prime location for the construction of Kindergartens. Humans are clearly inferior. If they can’t even fight for their own planet, they don’t deserve to live there.”

“You’re wrong,” Pearl said.

“ _What?_ ” Peridot’s voice cracked. “ _I’m what? I can stabilize you again, you know, and then we’ll see who’s wrong, you little_ \--”

Jasper cut her off, tired of the whole thing already. “She’s harmless, Peridot. Let it go.”

Peridot looked as though she wanted to argue some more, but held her tongue. “Well, then. Since you like humans so much, why don’t you tell me about the one that calls itself ‘Steven.’ It is your associate, is it not?”

At the mention of Steven’s name, Pearl felt her heart flutter. With that jolt, she was reminded that she needed to make sure to protect him, to make sure they didn’t know about what he really was. Lapis knew exactly what he was but she...did not tell them, apparently. Even after Lapis gave them her information, Peridot still thought he was just a human. A little shocked, Pearl looked over at Lapis, only to see that she was already looking right back. In her eyes, a graceful patience, laced with the smallest hint of a smile. Lapis offered her a nod, almost imperceptible, but the significance was clear. She would protect Steven. She had been protecting him all along.

“He’s just a human child,” Pearl said, finally managing to break her gaze from Lapis. “Small and weak. He is a source of amusement to us, nothing more.”

“...source...of...amusement...” Peridot repeated more or less to herself as she squinted at the screen in front of her. Her fingers were moving quickly to keep up with the volume of information. “Very well. Now I want you to tell us about—”

Jasper got impatient. “Ask her about Rose Quartz.”

“How would _she_ know anything about _that?_ ” Peridot scoffed. Her fingers were still typing away.

“This is Rose’s pearl. She would know what happened to her.”

Peridot stopped typing. All eyes turned to Pearl and suddenly she felt very alone. She wasn’t sure how Jasper knew with such certainty that she had been Rose’s and suddenly she became very aware of the fact that Jasper was leaning over her. That arm was still slung over the back of the couch, and it felt like it could close around her at any minute. And yet, despite the fact that it truly felt as though she was being crowded by a body much bigger than her own, Pearl got the odd sense Jasper was trying to imbue her with comfort. Like the cage of her body and arm were supposed to feel like shelter instead of a tomb. Slowly, Pearl let her gaze wander up to meet Jasper’s face.

“Where is she?” Jasper asked. “Why is she no longer on Earth with...what’s left of her compatriots?”

For the longest moment, Pearl couldn’t speak. She tried, she attempted to form words with her fingers splayed on her chest as if to help force the air from her lungs, but it got her nowhere. She held Rose so dear and close to her heart to the point where it almost felt like she was always there. And yet Pearl found she struggled to talk about it, even now. What happened...what happened... “She left,” she finally choked out. It wasn’t even a lie. It was the wretched truth. Rose had left them and, most devastatingly, left her.

Jasper watched her struggle with fixed, glowing eyes. She even gave Pearl a few moments more to wrestle with herself before she prompted again. “She left. Why did she leave?”

Pearl could feel her heart breaking all over again. She didn’t want to re-live this. Not here, not now. Not with these gems. Her hands were shaking, so she twisted them in her lap. “She...she just did.”

There was a frustrated noise from Jasper. She shuffled even closer, as if she could understand if only she could crawl deep enough under Pearl’s skin. “Why would she leave you behind? You’re her pearl. She would have taken you with her.”

It was almost a perfect echo of what went on inside her own head. It was too familiar, painfully so. “I ask myself that question every day and I still don’t understand why.” It was the truth. Every word of it.

Beside her, Jasper ran her tongue over her teeth to mask her dissatisfaction. She reared back and then, unable to contain her frustration anymore, she slammed her fist into the arm of the couch. The whole room shook—Pearl recoiled from the impact. Jasper barely noticed. She was up and pacing with immediacy. “Damn it. So Rose Quartz is out there somewhere. And here I thought we had her contained on Earth...”

“Ugh,” Peridot looked down her nose as she continued to type. “If I was Rose Quartz, I would leave my pearl, too. Useless. Doesn’t know anything about any—”

Jasper whirled on Peridot, claws splayed in a threatening display. “ _Hey!_ ”

The unexpected outburst made all three flinch back. At first, Pearl wasn’t sure why she’d lashed out at Peridot. Peridot didn’t even seem to know why Jasper had lashed out at her. She’d squeaked out a rather undignified noise of terror at having Jasper’s formidable claws bared in her direction and simply sealed her mouth and continued typing vigorously.

Lapis, on the other hand... Lapis was looking between Jasper and Pearl, eyes flicking back and forth for a few moments with a slightly disbelieving expression, her lips parted as if they almost wanted to twist into an incredulous smile. Something seemed to click in her head, an epiphany that Pearl wished she was privy to. She looked over at Jasper, too, wondering just what it was Lapis saw.

Jasper was back to pacing the bridge. “When was the last time you saw Rose Quartz?”

“Ten years ago.”

“Mm. So it hasn’t been too long, that’s good. We could still catch up with her so long as she’s not using the warps. There has to be some sliver of the galaxy we can corner her in.”

“We should send this information to Yellow Diamond right away,” Peridot said. “It can’t wait for the final report. She’ll want to send out scouts immediately.”

Jasper nodded her consent, a deep, thoughtful look in her eyes. She appeared to be calculating, perhaps scouring all her knowledge of every planet in which Rose Quartz could conceal herself. The frenetic pacing stopped at the very least. Slowly, she made her way back to the couch where she sat down next to Pearl once more.

A claw traced down the back of Pearl’s neck. It was supposed to be a gentle touch, but Pearl had learned well enough by now that, try as Jasper might, she still had trouble managing those. If it wasn’t the menacing claws, it was the sharp teeth. If it wasn’t the sharp teeth, it was the bruising grip. It was as though no one had ever taught Jasper how touching was supposed to work.

Still trying to be gentle, Jasper took Pearl’s chin in her hand and turned her head. Pearl managed not to wince as Jasper gave her earnest praise. “You were useful after all, Pearl. That’s just the kind of cooperation we need from you.”

Somewhere to her left—Pearl couldn’t see anything but Jasper’s face—Peridot made a noise of disdain. Whatever that reaction had been for or about, it prompted Jasper to twist around. “You couldn’t have done it better. I told you I could get it done in two weeks, and now look: it didn’t even take me that long. Look at her. This is not the same pearl that almost took your head off back on Earth. You can’t tell me your methods would have gotten this result.”

Pearl just sat there, trying to look meek as they spoke about her as though she wasn’t there. Jasper flaunting her like something to be prized, Peridot rolling her eyes back into her skull with how fed up she was over the whole thing.

“My methods have actually been tested on pearls. There are fine calibrations and analysis made specifically to extract compliance from—”

“She is compliant! Look at her.” Jasper grabbed Pearl’s face a little too enthusiastically. She was practically shaking her. “Did she not just give us valuable information? Do you have a nebula crammed between your ears?”

And then Lapis, who had not uttered a word of anything to anyone so far, decided to speak. Her voice was so soft, and yet there was a presence to her tone that commanded that they listen to her siren song. “You still have a lot of work to do with her,” Lapis said with lover’s eyes, watching Pearl. “She’s faking it.”

Pearl could feel her hands go cold. She silently begged, begged for Lapis to just leave her alone. She didn’t understand. How could Lapis smile at her like that? She would risk everything for Steven, but she was all too willing to play with Pearl’s life as though it were an amusing game, as though she were a mouse to dangle before a throng of cats. She held her just out of reach, insatiably curious about when one of those cats would leap up just a little too high and snatch her down.

“What? How do you know?” Jasper bristled at Lapis. She was used to Peridot being disagreeable, but Lapis usually wasn’t.

Lapis was still staring Pearl down. “Just look at her eyes. She still lives in them.”

Immediately, Jasper jerked Pearl’s face toward hers again. She was met with a glowing yellow gaze boring into her, searching desperately for whatever it was Lapis had found in her. Jasper wanted to find it too, but the harder she pushed, the less she seemed to be able to grasp. She grunted in frustration, picking Pearl apart for the flaw in her design. If she could find the flaw, she could rip it out.

“Haven’t you ever seen a pearl before? They’re dumb; they’re chattel.” Lapis continued, cool and sweet.

Even as Pearl stared up into Jasper’s face, trying her very hardest to endow herself with vacancy, she realized something very important. The most dangerous gem on this ship was not Jasper, with her looming stature and punishing hands. It was not Peridot, with her warped sense of perversion and jeering looks. The most dangerous gem on this ship was, indeed, the sweet, unsuspecting Lapis Lazuli. She had always, always been the most dangerous one.

“She’s good, though. I’ll give her that.” Lapis tilted her chin up, amused by the way Jasper looked as though she was seconds away from tearing Pearl’s body apart to find the evidence she hinted at. What Jasper lacked in patience, she made up for in thoroughness.

Any moment now, Pearl knew Jasper was going to find what she was looking for. Pearl was going to slip up and give herself away. She didn’t know how, but it was going to happen and all she could do was wait there, cowering against the inevitability of it all. Any moment, any second...

It was Peridot who saved her. “Aww,” she goaded Lapis, somehow finding humor in the whole thing, “it looks like someone’s sad they’re not Jasper’s favorite anymore.”

Lapis took the bait. “Oh, you’re one to talk,” she snapped.

The spell was broken. Jasper aborted her search and released Pearl’s jaw. “Yes,” she rumbled, “fight some more over which one of you gets to ride my dick first. That’s going to solve everything.” She stood, clearly fed up with the other two. What Pearl didn’t expect was for her to turn around and extend a hand down to her.

Pearl stared at the proffered hand. She could sense Lapis and Peridot holding their breath, waiting to see what she would do with it. Eventually, she accepted it. Her own hand looked tiny against Jasper’s palm. Her fingers didn’t even span the width of it. It closed around hers and helped her up from the couch.

Such a simple gesture and Pearl didn’t know what to make of it. When Jasper let her go and began to leave, Pearl just trailed out after her. With one look over her shoulder, she captured the satisfying image of Peridot and Lapis still sitting there in astonishment. Lapis was doing a better job at hiding her shock than Peridot, who was all but sputtering.

Somehow, it was invigorating. Only a minute ago, Pearl was not sure she was going to live long enough to see tomorrow. Or, at the very least, Jasper was going to have to start all over again with her, using even more frightening tactics this time. But instead, she was walking alongside her captor, her quickened footsteps echoing Jasper’s wide gait.

They didn’t speak the whole way back to her chamber, but that was just fine. Pearl got the sense Jasper was mulling over something. There was an internal conversation she was not invited to. It was not unusual for these gems to hide what they were planning and thinking from her, but for once she desperately wished she knew what was going on. She chanced a glance up at Jasper, finding nothing readable.

In the end, Jasper took her back to the chamber where she was to be kept, but this time she wasn’t stripped or shackled. She just took her there, told her she expected her to stay, and left. And so Pearl stayed. It was an empty room, stark and cold, but there was one window where she could watch the universe go by and that was enough.

 

* * *

 

So Rose was gone. She had turned tail and run, reduced to nothing more than a coward after a few thousand years on Earth. Banishment apparently degraded her down to the point of desperation, to the point at which she would abandon all to get away from the very planet she’d lost everything to protect. She’d even forsaken her own pearl...

Jasper actually felt sorry for Pearl. With everything pearls did for those that possessed them, it was probably the worst kind of trauma to be left behind. The poor little thing. What a bad piece of luck to be stuck with Rose; forced to turn against Homeworld and fight until her hands were worn and raw and continue to fight even long after the battle had ended because fighting wasn’t even in her nature. Whatever poor decisions Rose had made, the pearl got dragged along with them like so much flotsam in her wake. The pearl never even stood a chance. It wasn’t her fault.

For some reason, Jasper found herself even more disgusted at the thought of Rose Quartz. She had no respect at all for the order of things. If she had her way, all of Homeworld would be in chaos—there would be no direction, no natural systems in place in which to keep things running smoothly. Gems would reject their purposes in favor of adopting new, fallacious identities; little pearls and peridots would get left behind because other gems would forget what they needed.

Rose Quartz had the gall to leave her pearl behind, and now look at her: curled around herself, gazing out the large ship’s window and into the faces of the stars. She looked so lost, so small. A tiny, frail little gem who wasn’t meant to be out here on her own. It took a lot of bravery for a pearl to manage on their own and, from the sound of it, this one had been managing for ten years.

She was a pretty one, too. And not just her pliable little cunt and her perked breasts, but her open face and graceful hands, too. Most of the pearls back on Homeworld looked ragged and worn down by now, but this one had grown on Jasper. Why bother with Peridot’s incessant wheedling and Lapis’ conniving snatches at authority when she could better spend her time down here in the dark with a quiet, thoughtful little thing? Her melodic cries would often send shivers down Jasper’s spine.

Pearl must have noticed Jasper still standing there in the doorway staring. She was starting to fidget. Jasper still scared her, of course. She knew this. Part of her was pleased. The other part knew that it only made things more difficult. Perhaps now that she’d thoroughly bullied Pearl into submission, she could work on earning back a little trust.

Arms crossed, Jasper approached from behind. It really was a nice view. The stars scattered across the dark blanket of space’s edge and beyond. There was so much of it out there. Jasper had seen a lot of it, but nowhere near all. She wondered how much of it Pearl had seen and if she missed it.

Jasper came to a stop behind Pearl and watched space debris float by. They sat in silence for a while, but it wasn’t a comfortable one. Pearl was nervous. Jasper glanced down to see she had stopped looking out the window and was looking at her hands instead.

With a sigh, Jasper crouched down behind her. Her knees butted up against Pearl’s shoulders as she leaned in close. “I know what she did to you,” she said.

Pearl said nothing.

“I know,” Jasper continued, leaning even closer, “that she probably told you that you had a choice. That you were free to choose to stay by her side or leave. It must have sounded like freedom, but you know deep down you never had a choice. You know she knew the same. You were just going to follow her...” She reached out and let her fingers find the elegant curve of Pearl’s shoulder. Her knuckles brushed over her skin.

“I did what I had to do,” Pearl whispered. She eyed Jasper’s hand as it moved down to her elbow.

And of course she did what she had to do. She was just a pearl. They couldn’t do anything but that. “I know. You were a good little pearl until the end.”

An odd noise left Pearl. It was a foreign sound to Jasper and she actually had to lean to one side and get a good look at her face to make sure she wasn’t crying. She wasn’t, but she wore an expression that looked like pain. It was more than a little confusing.

Jasper sat back on her haunches and let out a heavy breath. “She damaged you good, didn’t she?” It wasn’t a question. It was all confirmation that Rose’s radical notions about liberty and self-determination just didn’t work. Whatever those humans taught her on that mudball of a planet couldn’t be applied to gems. It would break them, especially the weakest of them.

Pearl was listening, but she wasn’t responding. It was difficult to figure out exactly what she was thinking, but maybe that was a good thing. Lapis said pearls were like chattel. Perhaps they didn’t have much of a capacity to express themselves in their natural state. Jasper tried to think back on the pearls she’d seen, but she had to search far back into her memories. When Jasper had been created, they weren’t even making pearls anymore; too outdated. On top of that, it was rare to see pearls outside the Nursery. Jasper had very little experience with them and, for a moment, she considered if she should have let Peridot head up this project after all.

How to earn the trust of a gem that didn’t want to acknowledge her? Jasper crowded a little closer, hoping that when she put her hands on Pearl’s waist, it would not make her flinch. It did. Jasper tried anyway. “You don’t have to do this anymore, Pearl. You don’t have to pick up a weapon and fight. You don’t have to strain and fret over making decisions. I’m going to take good care of you. I’m going to tell you what to do. That’s what you need, isn’t it?” she said. “You just need someone to tell you what to do.”

“I...I...” Pearl struggled to find her voice.

Jasper waited, breath baited, to see if the pearl would give her more. She had so little patience, but she made an effort to spend what she had on that moment.

“Yes,” Pearl finally said. “Yes, that’s what I need.”

It felt like a breakthrough. Jasper’s immediate instinct was to reward her with something for the response. Tentatively—because this was all she could come up with—Jasper placed a hand on top of Pearl’s head. Smooth locks of hair threaded beneath her fingers. “Good. That’s all you have to need.”

Part of her considered laying Pearl down and crawling over her. Jasper liked the taste of her cunt and enjoyed the validation her cries granted. Her body was responsive and easy to pull close to her own. Maybe Jasper could get Pearl to hold still long enough for her to grind up against her slim thigh. It had been a while since Jasper had gotten off with another gem beneath her. Homeworld had strict regulations against copulation, but out here on Peridot’s ship, the rules could be bent. Years of overhearing hushed conversations between other gems in the loading docks or quiet hallways confirmed she was not alone in ignoring the rules when she was off on missions. Almost every gem did it; they just didn’t talk about it openly.

Before Jasper could internally rationalize pulling Pearl onto her back, she spoke up again.

“Jasper,” she said, “What’s going to happen when we get to Homeworld?”

There was no easy answer to that question. Yellow Diamond had been evasive when the subject of their captive pearl was brought up, so there was no definite confirmation that Pearl would be allowed to live. Jasper wasn’t even sure there was a place for her. The Nursery stopped producing geodes millennia ago and it was likely there were no pearls even left there. She simply didn’t know for sure. There wasn’t any place for Pearl to go on Homeworld otherwise.

Drawing at whatever she could to formulate a reply, Jasper suggested, “Maybe you’ll be given to a higher ranking gem as a gift.” It came out gruff and uncertain. Surely it was not the comforting confirmation Pearl probably wanted to hear.

Maybe right now was not the best time for Jasper to roll Pearl over and fuck her. It was a little disappointing, but Jasper had two other gems she could entertain herself with since the urge already struck. Peridot and Lapis were never too busy.

If the pats she placed on Pearl’s cheek were condescending, Jasper didn’t notice. She straightened back up. “You’ve been good. As long as you stay away from the control room and core, I’ll tell Peridot you’re allowed to move around the ship if you want. Don’t have to stay cooped up here all the time.” There. That was as good a consolation Jasper could give. Pearl even murmured thanks in return.

Like that, Jasper left her little stargazer to her own devices, suspecting that she wouldn’t even consider wandering around on her own. Probably for the best.

Jasper was off to find and corner Peridot. If she was lucky, Lapis would still be nearby as well. She had some needs to attend to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank all the people that helped beta this chapter:
> 
> ahegaopearl.tumblr.com  
> lesbianspiderqueen.tumblr.com  
> fuzzbig.tumblr.com  
> pearl-the-gay-rock.tumblr.com


	5. Chapter 5

If Peridot and Lapis managed to be any more frustrating, Jasper was going to up and leave. She sat in the control chair, her legs spread and hand massaging her own cunt. Her cheek leaned into the palm of her other hand, positively bored as Peridot protested for the dozenth time.

“You’re _sitting_ on my _face_.” She gave Lapis’s hips a shove.

Lapis twisted around to look back at Peridot, pausing in her own ministrations to say, “Yes. That’s the point.”

“ _You’re not actually supposed to sit!_ ”

Peridot was sprawled flat out on her back, desperately trying to garner some control of Lapis, who hovered over her on all fours. Indeed, it appeared as though she was trying to push her hips down onto Peridot’s head while simultaneously working her fingers between the heavily slicked folds of Peridot’s quim.

Sex with Lapis was always a very wet experience. They were both already sopping and rolling about in a puddle. Not even Peridot’s hair could escape the deluge, now thoroughly slicked back and tangled in wet curls on her shoulders.

“You’re doing it too hard!” Peridot flailed again.

Lapis was fed up. “ _Jasper!_ ”

Jasper sounded tired. “Peridot, just let her sit on your face.”

Peridot relinquished her attempts at garnering control and her whimper was muffled as Lapis succeeded in pressing her hips down. She let out a sweet little moan, which must have meant Peridot was putting her tongue to something more useful than complaining.

Without having to concentrate on fighting a war, Lapis bowed her head and returned the favor in kind. Jasper got a lovely view of her tongue daring out to delve betwixt the sweet slick she’d already coaxed from Peridot. Lapis licked and suckled, paying homage to every bit of plump labia she could pull between her lips. That was one of the nice things about Lapis; when she put her mind to something, she was very thorough.

Both of them moaning in contentment, Jasper could finally enjoy the scene for what it was. Her fingers roamed over the dunes of her cunt, parting herself and massaging her clit beneath its hood with two fingers. In bold, wide circles her fingers moved, though her motions were anything but reckless. She had to be careful with her claws, as she was no more immune to them than anyone else. Many years of practice, however, allowed her to touch herself successfully without making herself bleed.

From the sound and look of Peridot’s distress, Lapis was rubbing her clit up against the gem on her forehead now. Lapis was grinning, rolling her hips to grind down harder. “Doesn’t that feel nice?” she all but sang.

Peridot was trying to shove at her hips again. Jasper could already tell where this was going.

“I’m going to take your arms if you don’t knock it off,” Lapis warned.

And yet Peridot shoved again, this time hard enough to displace Lapis from her perch. “Just let me be on top! I know how to do it, so just let me—”

“ _Jasper_.” Lapis complained once more.

“Take off her arms, then.”

Lapis sat on Peridot’s head again, this time using all her weight to keep her pinned down. Peridot’s limbs thrashed in every direction, her heels hitting the floor with metallic thuds. Even with all the flailing, it only took Lapis mere moments to catch one of Peridot’s arms. Her nimble fingers fumbled around at the joint, searching for the mechanism she knew was there. When she finally found the button, the metal prosthetic ejected from Peridot’s elbow with a stuttering cloud of hydraulic steam. All five fingers immediately dropped the ground in a cacophony of pings and rolled to the far corners of the room. Lapis tossed the metal forearm aside and went to catch the other one.

When Lapis finally climbed off, Peridot was looking even more flustered than usual. Her hair was wet and flattened to her head, her gem was coated in the distinct glisten of Lapis’s copious juices, and she was rendered even more helpless without the prosthetics. “Lapis...” she groaned. “You better help me put those back on after this.”

“I will.” Lapis smiled her sweet smile and then promptly plunged her fingers back into Peridot’s cunt with a gratuitous wet sound. She twisted and drove forward, searching for something. When she found it, she had Peridot gasping. There was a look of triumph on Lapis’ face. “I can feel you,” she hummed. “I can feel you in there.”

Peridot’s head was thrown back, her throat bobbing as Lapis curled her fingers over and over.

“Let’s see if I can’t get you to come out and play.”

There was a whimper from Peridot, something that could have sounded like protest but with no resolve behind it. She canted her hips up, thighs shaking as she helped Lapis and her fingers find that perfect angle. Deep inside, nestled at the forefront of her pelvis, was the extensive continuation of her clit. Malleable tissue, throbbing with blood and nerves and hiding. Lapis could glide her fingers around and over the bulk of it, feel it shift and twitch inside. She could tease it, lure it, and woo it to her. She could make Peridot lose control. The swell was already forcing the tip to plump, greedily stretching out from beneath its hood as if begging for attention. Lapis granted her that. She bowed her head and closed her lips over the bud.

“Lapis,” Peridot wheedled. “Lapis, not here...”

“I want to see it,” she murmured into the flesh of Peridot’s cunt.

The swelling was too much to keep Peridot’s prick tucked away in its sheath. Under her fingers, Lapis could feel muscles winding tight, reeling her in and knew there was no going back from this. What was internal became external as Lapis teased arousal into her flesh. Peridot squealed as she felt the muscles of her pelvis contract with unapologetic finality, marking a full and devastating loss of control.

Lapis sat back on her haunches and laughed out loud. “Oh,” she cried, a wet hand pressed to her forehead. “Oh, you’re so _small_.”

Indeed, Peridot’s manifest and full arousal was not impressive in length or girth; it was downright unimpressive in fact, though it did glisten with a rather lovely fresh coating of slick. Small divots and ridges pocked down both sides, an unusual feature compared to most other cocks Jasper had seen—including her own—which tended to have markings that blossomed from the middle seam. It wasn’t even large enough to displace the rest of her anatomy, for below her straining cock, Peridot’s cunt was still visibly beckoning for Lapis’s fingers once more and had plenty of room to accommodate them.

Now Peridot was a flushed and angry little thing. “You’re...you’re probably not much bigger,” she scoffed.

Lapis simpered. “I suppose you’ll never know. I never lose control.” With that, she plunged three fingers back into Peridot and sidled back into her perch hovering over her face. This time, at least, she didn’t insist on sitting.

A droning hum that could have been a nascent scream vibrated from Peridot’s chest as Lapis curled her fingers once more. Peridot’s eyes rolled back into her head, heels scraping on the floor when she dragged her legs even further apart in a lewd, involuntary reaction.

This was exactly what Jasper needed. Watching Peridot reduced to nothing more than primary brain function and desperation had Jasper’s breath coming faster. Her fingers worked over her clit more rapidly, dived down to gather a generous helping of slick from where it pooled at the mouth of her entrance, and then resumed their predatory circling. The pads of her fingers all but glided now, and she drove them forward in impulsive bursts as her eyes darted across Peridot’s lecherous form. Jasper grew careless once and a claw raked against tender flesh. It was an unpleasant bite, but it didn’t draw blood, and so she soldiered on as she always did.

She was close and yet her gut still rolled hot with hunger.

“Flip her over,” Jasper rumbled. “I want to see her.”

Lapis was happy to oblige. She climbed off Peridot and prodded her in the side. “Move.”

With a bleating whine and an immense amount of pleasure-derived sloth, Peridot managed to prop herself up on her elbows and flop over onto her stomach. She landed directly in another puddle; the splash was gratuitous.

Quite aware that Peridot was not going to be able to do much else, Lapis grabbed her waist and angled her in the right direction so she could present her to Jasper. It wasn’t difficult to tug her around—she was small and the floor was slippery with all manner of fluids derived from Lapis’s prolific quim. She sat across Peridot’s shoulders and grabbed at her hips. “Come on,” she said. “Up. Bring your hips up.”

Lapis tugged while Peridot struggled to find purchase with her knees; they kept sliding out from underneath her. But with their combined efforts, finally Peridot was presented to Jasper, raised ass, cunt, cock and all. It helped to have Lapis’s sweet face there, too, peering up at her for approval.

There was a withered cry from Peridot that sounded like “ _fuck me_ ,” but it was muffled and half-garbled into the tile of the floor, so Jasper ignored her. Her eyes focused instead on the way Peridot lay bare to her, spread open as if inviting her in. It beckoned her, enticing Jasper to just slip down from her seat and run her tongue up along such a wanton cunt, to abandon her own sense of control and discipline and just take what was offered to her...

And then Lapis’s fingers came creeping in from both sides, devious and shrewd. With those fingers, she spread Peridot in full, labia and all, until there was nothing to stop Jasper from imagining herself thrusting in, plumbing the depths of what Peridot’s cunt had to offer while clever little Lapis held her open. It was enough to send her over the edge.

Her grinding fingers stuttered when her hips jerked forward. Jasper bowed, head thrown back and jaw clenched as every muscle tightened on her bones. In this moment, it always felt like she was going to snap, her own strength overwhelming her as her body fought with vim to kill her with a spiteful kiss of bliss. It always relented right before Jasper felt like it was going to become too much, and she shook herself down from her high. Her hips still bucked as if begging for more, but her fingers refused to indulge, knowing that if she tried to help herself enjoy the last remnants of orgasm, she would just end up stabbing herself. It had happened too many times before in this uncoordinated state for her not to know better.

When she opened her eyes again and the room came swimming back to her, she could see Lapis bending over a still-writhing Peridot.

“Did you see that?” Lapis was whispering into Peridot’s ear. “She came for you.”

Peridot gurgled something into the puddle she lay face-down in. It sounded delighted, though.

When Jasper pulled her fingers from her cunt, a line of viscous slick came with them. She had to shake it off, her movements sluggish and ungainly. Glossy fingers held aloft, she pushed herself up to stand. Her body protested, as if it would much rather she lounge in that chair for the next eternity. But she couldn’t stay here forever; she’d gotten what she came here for. If she stayed much longer, she might be too easily persuaded to do something she might regret.

With lumbering steps, Jasper waded into the shallow puddle where Peridot and Lapis wallowed. To them, she offered her slick fingers, knowing it was what they wanted. And, as she suspected, the two of them were greedy. Lapis began to strip her middle finger clean with sultry, meticulous kitten-licks, while Peridot attacked the other and swallowed it down like she wanted to gag on it. She almost did, too, when the claw scraped at the back of her throat.

Jasper didn’t linger, however. The thudding rhythm of release had already dissipated from her body, leaving her feeling merely tired and all she wanted to do was find a place to lay quiescent for a while. She would return to her quarters for that. After pulling her fingers away, she offered only one final bit of praise to the other two. “Well done. Finish up. Peridot can have the evening off.”

Lapis was up on her knees immediately.  “You’re leaving already?”

“What?” Jasper shrugged as if she didn’t know what the fuss is about. “I finished. I’m not stopping either of you from continuing.”

As Jasper slipped out into the hall, Lapis actually bolted up. She made as if to march right after her, scowling the whole way. “Really? You’re really just going to leave like that? What is your—?”

“Lapis,” Peridot wailed from where she was still writhing in miserable ecstasy on the floor. “Lapis, don’t leave me. Please don’t.”

Lapis was standing at the threshold, one foot already out the door when she turned to look back at Peridot. It truly was a disgraceful sight. She supposed she should do something about it before Peridot started grinding up against the floor out of desperation. With a sigh and a barely concealed roll of her eyes, she stepped back into the room. “Alright,” she said. “Here I come.”

“ _Thank you, thank you, thank you..._ ”

Curling her legs beneath her, Lapis came to sit beside Peridot once more. One hand reached out to casually outline the curve of Peridot’s breast; running up over her nipple, dancing in circles, and then running back down. Underneath all of the clunky prosthetics and the miserable expressions she made, Peridot was not bad to look at. Especially when she was soaked to the bone and trembling. “What do you want me to do to you?” Lapis asked. If she sounded distracted, it was because she was still trying to rationalize Jasper’s quick departure.

“Lapis,” she whispered with moony eyes, like it was a closely-kept secret. “I want to fuck you.”

Lapis looked down at Peridot’s straining cock. She looked back up at Peridot’s face. And then, unable to contain it anymore, she threw her head back and laughed.

“ _What?_ ” Peridot cried. She did not understand what was so funny.

“Oh, stars. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m serious. I’m—” A vibrant flush was spreading across Peridot’s cheeks. She became flustered upon watching Lapis cup her face in her hands as she laughed. The brunt of the ridicule was beginning to sink in. “Fine,” Peridot barked. “Sit there and laugh. You are the worst.” And with that bitter remark, she flipped over on shaky elbows and began to make her way towards her nearest prosthetic arm where it had been carelessly tossed several feet away.

“No, no, come back here.” Upon seeing Peridot making her escape, Lapis reached out, grabbed her by the hips, and dragged her back across the floor until they were flush up against each other once more. She held on tight, despite Peridot’s writhing attempts to flee out of spite. “Don’t be upset. I think you’re endearing. For the most part.”

Peridot didn’t have much to say to that except to slam her heels into the floor in protest and utter a very rude, “ _Fuck you_.”

Unphased, Lapis held on even tighter. She pressed her lips to the shell of Peridot’s ear and murmured, “I’ll let you fuck me.”

The struggling stopped.

“But,” she continued, “on one condition.”

Peridot’s chest rose and fell once. “Name it.”

“I’ll let you fuck me if you swear on your life that you’ll remove from your mission report that I knew anything about that miserable little Earth city. Leave me out of it. Leave me out of all of it.”

Even with the offer on the table, it took Peridot a long moment to process it. “But what about the information you gave us?”

“It’s nothing that insipid little pearl couldn’t have told you. I promise.”

It was against protocol. So, so against protocol that it made Peridot whimper in the back of her throat, but she knew Lapis wanted this bargain from her more than anything and, in return, she very much wanted to fuck. She hoped it would be worth it and, most importantly, she hoped she would not get caught. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Pleased with having gotten her way, Lapis let go of Peridot’s hips. “You’ll do it?”

“Yes, I promise.”

They had found middle ground together. Now they both got what they wanted. And so, amiable as ever, Lapis laid back until her gem pressed against the floor. She peered up at Peridot, expectation written in her features. “Well? Are you going to come and take me?” To be quite honest, Lapis wasn’t expecting much out of the experience. But to make a point of her invitation, she spread her legs as well.

Peridot all but clambered on top of her. She slipped only once, but recovered to pitch herself forward.  Her elbows pressed against Lapis’s body to help hold her up. The sudden scramble caused wet volumes of hair to all but fling over her face and eyes, blinding her. She made a noise of complaint, shook her head, but only managed to make it worse as several more sopping locks flopped down over her forehead and cheeks. Peridot took a great breath as though she was drowning beneath it all.

So perhaps it was at least a little adorable. Lapis giggled and reached up to help. “Hi,” she attempted to peer under the curtain of wet hair.

It was only after Lapis helped push her hair out of her face to rest on her shoulders that she seemed to take any note of just how much she had been floundering. She looked almost bashful about it, too. “Hello,” she mumbled back.

Pressed together like that, they lingered for a moment. It was about then that Peridot seemed to remember that she was supposed to be doing something. Anything, really. It took some wiggling of her hips and maneuvering, but she brought their bodies flush. Their skin stuck together with a honeyed persistence.

Peridot was not very big. There was no gut-punch or incredible stretch to accommodate her pushing inside and yet...it was nice, Lapis decided. It was nice because it was Peridot who whimpered first. And it was nice because, when Peridot couldn’t hold herself up anymore, she buried her face against Lapis’s throat and gasped there.

Where Peridot rattled with nerves and eagerness Lapis was patient. When one pushed, the other gave. Where Lapis had done this one thousand times, she got the sense that it was Peridot’s first. At least, it was her first time like this where she was allowed to expect something of herself. Maybe her second. But for all the times the two of them had been summoned to the bridge to perform pornographic fantasies like a pair of dolls to be smashed together in a parody of sex, this was the first time they had ever been left alone together to finish.

And so they moved at their own pace. Slowed it down. No barked orders or requirements of either of them. When Peridot went uncoordinated and shaky, she let Lapis flip them over and ride her with hips that rolled with languid abandon. From the way Peridot reached, stretched, implored, it was clear she wanted to touch with phantom limbs and had forgotten they were no longer there. Lapis bent forward so she could. She even touched her in return.

It took them both a while to move afterwards. Life moved much easier, it seemed, when lying prone and exhausted under a shifting canopy of stars. It was Peridot who sat up first and made her way over to the closest prosthetic arm, unwilling to be left vulnerable for too much longer. As she promised, Lapis helped her put them back on. First one, then the other.

They didn’t say much to each other after that, but it was a mutual, comfortable silence for once. There weren’t enough of those on this ship.

 

* * *

 

Jasper was quiescent for only a few hours. When she awoke, she scrubbed the last traces of pleasure from her hands and cunt, though didn’t bother dressing just yet. Naked, she sat at the window in her quarters with a monitor on her lap. To make sure they hadn’t missed any important development while she had been otherwise indisposed, she scrolled through the ship logs and updates, only to see that Peridot had already addressed everything that needed addressing. That little robot couldn’t let things go for even a minute, it seemed. She wondered if she and Lapis had any fun of their own after she left.

Probably not. Those two couldn’t stand each other when she wasn’t around.

She was still restless. Pacing, sitting, pacing, laying down, pacing some more.

In the forefront of her mind, she was remembering the taste of Pearl’s cunt and it didn’t help matters. After release and rest, it should not have been the thing she reflected on as she stared out the window. There was a ship to run and a very important report to write. There were superiors that could contact her at literally any moment and subordinates who could be off causing havoc while she allowed distraction to creep into the recesses of her mind.

But Pearl tasted like nacre and sweet spice.

And then Jasper was aroused again.

This was just how pearls were, Jasper had to remind herself as she lay back on her chaise, spread her legs, and fingered herself. They were meant to be alluring and pretty. They were supposed to cry out like heathens when they were fucked; that was nothing special. But for what it was worth, she reminded herself, there was no harm in enjoying these things. These things were meant to be enjoyed, after all, as long as Homeworld couldn’t see her do it.

After she cleaned herself up a second time, Jasper made the effort to put clothes on and get to work so as to avoid having to do it a third time. She had been assigned to this mission to work, not indulge. The first order of business was to find Peridot, tease her a little bit, and then actually make headway on the report.

She was halfway to the control room when she made an arbitrary left turn and found herself heading toward the wing were Pearl was kept. It was not an entirely conscious decision, but it wouldn’t hurt to check on Pearl first to make sure she wasn’t causing problems. It had been several hours since she’d last taken stock of their captive’s status.

Pearl was leaning up against the window in her chamber. She curled up against it, huddled in one of the corners between the wall and glass with her arms wrapped about her middle. Though Jasper couldn’t see her face, she looked cold. She watched, leaned comfortably against the doorframe.

“What can I do for you, Jasper?”

Despite herself, she startled. She didn’t quite know why, but she got the distinct feeling that she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. And she also didn’t know why her first instinct was to go quiet and still in hopes that Pearl might forget she was there or think she’d been mistaken. She stood silent for several long beats.

Finally, with a sigh, Pearl twisted around to look over her shoulder. “I can hear you coming, you know. You’re not very quiet.”

That made sense of course. In the face of turning back around and retreating like an idiot or salvaging her lack of discretion, Jasper chose the latter. She stepped into the chamber, trying to ignore the fact that she’d been hungry for Pearl all day. She hoped the scent of her desire wasn’t still clinging to her. “Still staring at the stars,” she said. “You’re mourning.”

“Simply enjoying the view. It’s the first glimpse of the galaxy I’ve had in a long time. And it might be my last.”

What a withering thought. Even Jasper had to admit that she didn’t want to see Pearl crushed. She was not like the other pearls she’d heard about on Homeworld; she spoke plainly and with eloquence, conducted herself with ease, and looked positively well-preserved considering how long she’d been slogging along on some planet in the middle of nowhere. It was likely because she had belonged to Rose Quartz. Rose had probably enjoyed teaching her pearl to speak and act with a relative amount of self-awareness and agency. Not even to mention the fact that this pearl, having been Rose’s, must have been worth quite a lot back before the rebellion. Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising that she had survived as long as she had after all. Pearl was of good stock. If Yellow Diamond decided to have her erased or deactivated, it truly would be a waste.

As Jasper came to stand at the window beside Pearl, she began to consider her options. In all honesty, she should have just left the whole situation well enough alone. She’d done her job in reintegrating Pearl back into a more acceptable level of compliance and adherence, and that was all she had been tasked with doing. It was a line on her list of mission goals with a triumphant check mark next to it.

But it would be such a _shame_.

“How much do you want to live?” Jasper asked.

Pearl didn’t even have to pause and think. “More than anything.”

It was a quaint little story; a pearl that wanted to live and a jasper greedy enough to help her.

“My understanding is that Yellow Diamond was concerned about your willingness and ability to reintegrate. If you show her what you have shown me,” Jasper couldn’t help but reach out and finger the hem of Pearl’s collar, “then I think she will be much more willing to grant you clemency when the time comes.”

“I will do anything.”

A pulse of heat ran down her spine at those words. Jasper almost couldn’t believe her own appetite. It was a liability, it really was, and yet she couldn’t excise the part of her that craved this. She’d tried. And what a sordid thing to do, to take by compulsion all that she desired under the guise of helping save Pearl’s life. It was as good as any lie she could have told. “Let me show her how much you like it when I touch you.” She found a stray lock of hair at the nape of Pearl’s neck and tucked it back into place. “Let me show her that you’re not as broken as she thinks you are. Remind her that you belonged to Rose Quartz and make her believe it. That’s how you survive.”

This time, it seemed Pearl had to give it some thought. Her tongue darted between her lips for a brief second as she stared out to the void of empty space before her. Whatever it was she saw out there, it helped to make up her mind. “I’ll do it.”

She offered herself up as prey so easily; who was Jasper to deny her the opportunity? It took everything in her power not to simply sink her teeth into Pearl right here and now before she could change her mind about it. Jasper’s impulsive nature was always her worst enemy and so she made the conscious decision not to let it get the better of her. When the time came, she reminded, she would let herself have what she desired.

And this time, Pearl would invite her in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actual footage of Peridot drowning in Lapis's pussy juice: https://youtu.be/N3WeXGmqYsE
> 
> A thank you to all of my lovely betas:
> 
> 100-percent-beef-jasper.tumblr.com/  
> lesbianspiderqueen.tumblr.com  
> fuzzbig.tumblr.com


	6. Chapter 6

It was difficult to discern the passage of time when trapped in the twilight of space, but Pearl suspected it was only a few days later when Jasper came for her again.

“Come on,” she said, standing at the threshold with arms crossed.

Pearl nodded and stood. Her eyes wandered the stars one last time before making her way back into Jasper’s possession. They walked together down those long halls and Pearl did everything in her power to keep her chin tilted with resolve. Jasper should not see her falter.

She was going to survive. She would give up everything—her home, her dignity, her body—so long as she was allowed to keep her life. This opportunity Jasper offered her to prove her worth was the best chance she had, and she would not denigrate it by thinking about how humiliating it was going to be.

This was her choice. This was her decision.

At one point, Jasper’s hand found a way to her shoulder and rested there with a heavy permanence. Pearl had long since abandoned trying to interpret what these touches were supposed to convey, because no matter what, they always just felt like ownership. And there was always a claw or two that pinched at the skin of her arm simply by the nature of its presence.

When Jasper steered her into another room, Pearl was surprised to see Peridot there, reclined in a chair. She had her hologram screen open and was chuckling at something with idle complacence. “No, no,” she said, “I’ve got it all handled. I promise. It’s got a great view of the whole city, you’ll see, you’ll—”

“Up,” Jasper wasted no time with niceties.

Immediately, Peridot scrambled out of her chair, the hologram screen reflexively closing whatever windows were open. “We’re doing this here? Now?”

“Yes.”

“But this is _my room!_ ”

Pearl glanced around the space. It was sparse—there was one window on the far wall where Jupiter rolled by in the distance.  In one corner was a cylindrical glass chamber that looked as though someone was meant to stand in it, but for the life of her Pearl couldn’t imagine its purpose. Another corner looked to have nothing but clutter. Upon a moment of study, she recognized it to be stacks and trays filled to the brim with robotic pieces and parts. The inner workings of whatever Peridot was tinkering with were near-unrecognizable to Pearl until she spied the metal shell of what looked to be a leg leaning up against the wall, half of its mechanical guts pulled out. There was enough junk pouring out of bins and drawers to build several limbs with a number of gem energy cores stored in a transparent container. Some of it was even scattered onto a low, flat recliner that Pearl recognized as a bed. It had been a long time since she’d seen a bed from Homeworld, having been so used to Earth beds now. There were no pillows or excessive blankets that humans liked to use; instead, it was nothing more than a flat, thin mattress slightly raised on one end, intended to merely function as a place for gems to lay when quiescent. From the looks of how cluttered Peridot’s bed was, she did not go quiescent often.

With one, fluid sweep of her arm, Jasper cleared the entire bed of its contents.

“ _Hey!_ ” Peridot shrieked and rushed to tend to the spill. “ _That’s my stuff!_ ”

“And now it’s on the floor.”

Peridot continued to grouse and systematically collect the parts that had been carelessly shoved aside—gears, hydraulic pumps, tubing, and, of course, a number of pesky little bolts that kept slipping between her unwieldly fingers.

It was then that Jasper turned to Pearl and offered a hand. She knew well enough by now that this gesture meant ‘come here.’ And so Pearl went to her, arms hugged to her chest, like a dove wandering into a tiger’s embrace.

“Why don’t you undress?” Jasper murmured to her, her voice close enough to Pearl’s ear for her to feel the words sink into her.

Pearl took the suggestion with a numb nod, eyeing the bed before them. It was better, at least, than hanging suspended in a dark room with a gag between her lips. At least here, like this, it was more familiar. Almost intimate. Beds were where lovers fell into each other, both on the Homeworld she had once known as well as the Earth she loved.

The easiest way to undress would be to simply use her gem. Her clothes could be gone in a flash of light, but she was also not keen on the sensation of being suddenly naked no more than she was on the idea of being dunked in ice water. So she chose the slow way of undressing, starting with her shoes. She bent at the waist and balanced on the edge of a table to take one off. Then the other. All the while, she listened as the other two conversed behind her.

“I hope you’re not planning to do this in my bed,” Peridot scoffed, chasing after another bolt that rolled away every time she made a grab for it.

Jasper seemed to disregard every form of complaint Peridot could possibly throw at her. “Did you set up the broadcast signal?”

“I did.”

Pearl rolled down her socks.

“Good. And Yellow Diamond will be watching?”

“Mm, not exactly,” Peridot explained. “I don’t want to be hasty. We might not get it right on the first take. I won’t be surprised if she starts to _cry_.” She sent a nasty little sneer in Pearl’s direction.

Pearl ignored it. She peeled off her other sock, folded it, and set it aside. She would not cry.

Jasper considered the suggestion with a tap of her foot. “Fine. Where’s the broadcast going to, then?”

Looking terribly proud of herself, Peridot shrugged a shoulder. “The Crystal Gems, of course. Why not give them an update on their precious pearl’s status? I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear that you’re actually going to try and save her.” She snorted like it was the funniest thing, consumed by her own sense of humor, as usual.

Pearl twisted around, her sash crumpled in her hand at the horrible realization that what she was about to do was also going to find its way back to Garnet and Amethyst. They weren’t going to understand what she was doing. They would only see her as broken, a victim. They wouldn’t see that she was _surviving_. She looked to Jasper, hoping to catch her gaze as if to silently beseech her not to let this happen...

But she had to remind herself that compliant pearls did not complain, even if they had grievances to air. It was pure strategy that made her seal her lips for good. She turned around and began to shimmy out of her top.

“I’ll record the broadcast, then send the pieces we want over to Yellow Diamond. We are going to look so great! I’m due for a promotion after this for sure.” Peridot bubbled with excitement at the prospect.

Pearl was still pulling her shirt over her head when she felt fingers hook around the waist of her shorts. Her breath hitched. The claws that poked into her flesh assured her to whom those fingers belonged to, and so she stayed impossibly still as they began to draw the last vestiges of her clothing over her hips. And down. And to her thighs where fingers raked with aching tenderness. To her shins. Hot breath on the small of her back revealed that Jasper knelt as she lured the last of Pearl’s clothing to her ankles, crowded as close as she could be without actually touching.

Then she was naked. All she could think about was Jasper crouched behind her, panting at her back and ready to consume.

It was Peridot who interrupted. “Ugh,” she sounded thoroughly disgusted. “Do you want to wait until we’re recording before you start slobbering like an idiot?”

“Start whenever you want,” Jasper said.

And then there was a tongue running up the length of Pearl’s spine, from base to neck, dipping unabashedly between the rungs of her vertebrae as though climbing a ladder. Up, then up again. Pearl inhaled as it ascended, dragging something that felt like heat from her depths until she swayed on her feet. And just when she tipped forward enough to nearly lose her balance, Jasper was there to catch her with an arm around her waist.

Oh, no. Garnet and Amethyst were going to have a difficult time watching this. Pearl could already tell that this was going to kill them inside to see her so, so—

A sharp pinch at Pearl’s thigh caused her to jump. “ _Ow!_ ” Pearl smacked at the offending hand whose fingers had grown too careless on their excursion between her legs. It was pure reflex on her part. She didn’t even have time to think about what it could possibly mean for her to reprimand Jasper. It would give her away, surely. It would be obvious that she was not as dazed and pliant as they thought she was.

To her surprise, though, Jasper simply murmured an apology and adjusted her approach as though it was nothing unexpected at all.

Taken aback, it was all Pearl could to do just stand there running the last few moments back in her head. Had Jasper just apologized? It had been brusque and nothing more than a grunted version of what could have been words, but the intent was obvious. And from the way, too, that her hand crept with more caution now that she’d been rebuked, Pearl could only conclude that Jasper didn’t want to hurt her.

_Jasper didn’t want to hurt her._

Wasn’t trying to, at least.

Two arms encompassed her and suddenly she was pressed up against Jasper in her entirety. There was a tongue on her neck, tasting her, and white hair spilling over onto her shoulders. She felt Jasper’s gem brush her cheek and all its pointed edges. And then Pearl was being picked up, her weight carried solely by the hand cupped between her legs, her body balanced upright by the one wrapped around her waist. Pearl watched with half-lidded eyes as she was carried toward the bed, wary of her approach. _This is it_ , she thought to herself as the bed neared. _This is where it happens_.

She only hoped Garnet and Amethyst would forgive her for what she was about to do.

Not far away, Peridot fiddled with her hologram screen. “If you make a mess on my bed, Jasper, I swear...”

Jasper set her down on the bed, waiting until Pearl had her legs curled under her to let her go again. A hand on the back of Pearl’s neck guided her down even further. For the second time today, Jasper’s fingers tried to slip between her legs. Pearl tensed up, attempting to stay as still as possible, for she knew very well by now that it would be only moments before Jasper tried to enter her.

As she predicted, a finger pressed against her, searching for a way in. Before Pearl even had the chance to relax into it, the claw caught on the rim of her entrance and made her jump. A bark of irritation jolted from her, and this time she didn’t even try to hold it back.

Immediately, Jasper recoiled with a noise of frustration of her own. She pulled away, crouched at the foot of the bed and studying Pearl with an exasperation and focus that made her feel even more naked.

With knitted brows, Pearl stared back at her, her lips parted in a silent plea. “Hurts,” she whispered, her throat dry. It probably didn’t need to be said aloud; Jasper’s hands had abandoned her body in its entirety as she contemplated solutions. Jasper knew. She knew it hurt well enough by now.

When Jasper finally reached for Pearl again, it was to turn her over onto her back and drag her closer to the edge of the mattress. Pearl let her legs fall open just in time for Jasper to lean forward and envelop her with her mouth. What she received in lieu of those clumsy fingers was much, much better. A warm, eager tongue splitting her open, turning the tides. Pearl sighed, letting her ankles rest upon Jasper’s shoulders. Voluminous hair draped on and around her feet, her toes.

Out of the corner of her eye, Pearl saw Peridot looming. She seemed to have her screen finally set up and hovered with a vengeance. “Okay,” she said, meeting Pearl’s eyes. “Here we go. Don’t mess up; whatever you do, try not to cry. And remember to smile. _Smile_.”

Smile? Pearl found it did not come naturally to her, but she tried. She felt her lips lift away from her teeth as she stared into the screen, watching as her own face appeared in the window at the top-right corner. The broadcast was live. She looked like she was in pain.

Pearl’s conjured, dazed grin was short-lived. As soon as Jasper’s tongue thrust in, her smile faltered into an open-mouthed gasp. She looked down and was seized by the sight that greeted her. Between her thighs, Jasper’s eyes smoldered up at her. It gripped her. Held her there. Dragged her down until it felt as though the rest of the world may as well been submerged beneath an ocean of oblivion for all she cared. Pearl didn’t know if she was afraid or something else entirely.

Distantly, she could hear Peridot greeting the Crystal Gems, nasally taunts and all. She talked too long.

The moan Pearl uttered was a droning one, drawn out as Jasper began to trace her hands up her body, this time using only her knuckles, the claws turned away from skin as best she could. They crept up with such determination, unrivaled tenacity, until they brushed up against Pearl’s breasts. Jasper switched to her palms, then, so she could roll her hands over the rise of flesh, kneading it.

And then Jasper pushed forward, driving her tongue deeper, doubling Pearl over until it wrung the breath from her lungs. Something was unhinged in the way Jasper looked at her now, the way her hands shook as she tried not to maul her with her grasp. Pearl panted out some meandering nonsense; some form of assent for the way Jasper came over her like a storm. She keened, she buckled, she caved into herself.

“You’re forgetting to smile,” Peridot hissed in warning.

Jasper reared up before Pearl even had a chance to correct herself, her lips lined with a glistening coat of fluid. “Shut up. Just sit there and do your job.” And then she turned back to the object of her attentions, spat upon Pearl’s cunt with enough force to make her yelp, and dove back in with a vengeance.

Somewhere to Pearl’s left, she heard Peridot muttering to herself. “I guess we’ll cut that part out, then.”

Between her legs, Jasper rumbled, pushed harder, and gasped a puff of hot breath over Pearl’s skin. She pulled back for a second, thick threads of saliva connecting her overeager lips to Pearl’s quim, and when she came back for more, there were teeth. Immediately, it made Pearl jump, her hands rushing to grip Jasper’s hair in an attempt to pull her back, frightened of what those fangs could do. The largest of them were unmistakable in the way they rested pillowed against her labia, serving to hold the plush folds spread to make way for Jasper’s lurid tongue. The smallest teeth in the set, the ones more flattened and less vicious that lined the front of Jasper’s jaw, were positioned with an evident amount of care. Her upper lip was drawn back to allow the front face of her teeth to rub against Pearl’s clit. And when Jasper looked up at her with wide eyes, Pearl could only surmise she’d been given this as a gift.

Breath shallow and hands shaking, Pearl rolled her hips experimentally. The hard, but gliding surface of Jasper’s teeth combined with the plunging conquest of her tongue had her groaning out loud. Oh no...

Garnet forgive her. Amethyst forgive her.

Another dark, heavy sound from Jasper. This time, it was a question.

Pearl answered. With half-lidded eyes, she nodded her head a half dozen times, finishing with a whispered, “Yes.”

That was all the affirmation she needed. Jasper pulled her even closer and Pearl ground her hips in tight little circles against her face, shivering when that tongue curled inside her. Her tongue, like everything else about Jasper, was powerful and relentless. It curled like it wanted to scoop out from her depths every last decadent secret she held dear. And finally, with persistence, it found what it was looking for.

“ _Yes_ ,” Pearl shuddered with a soft sound, barely perceptible. But then Jasper amplified her efforts and pried from her much louder now, “Yes. _Yes!_ ”

Both of Jasper’s arms came around her waist, hoisting her entire spine off the mattress until it was only Pearl’s shoulders and head that kept her grounded. No longer could Pearl keep her foothold—her legs splayed out to either side, spread wide as she relinquished all sense of decency. The way she held her, the way she moved against her, it was like she wanted to bring Pearl into herself, become part of her. If nothing else, Pearl decided with the last thread of consciousness she had left, Jasper was the experience. Her scent, her weight, her lack of finesse that culminated into something wild and winsome.

Oh no.

“ _Oh, yes_.”

Peridot’s shadow menaced over them, but for a brief moment, Pearl could have sworn it was orgasm stalking at her back instead. She could feel it coming for her, drawing at her as though it had her on a rope and could reel her in at any moment. It had her on strings; the only explanation for why her hips jerked uncontrollably against Jasper’s face, twitching without her giving conscious control to the action. It had her, it had her gripped tight.

Oh no.

So sorry.

A cry took flight from Pearl’s chest with enough force that she could feel the wings beating at her ribs the entire way out. Her body bent and Jasper followed her, riding with her as she came, even when the rattle and spasm of her hips became sloppy and did nothing more than smear slick across Jasper’s cheeks. She didn’t seem to mind, though. The growls that left her sounded of victory, distant as they were when Pearl’s head was miles away, floating in a few treasured moments of bliss.

From far away, she could hear Peridot’s voice. “Look at me, Pearl,” she said. “Look at me.”

Dazed, flushed, she turned her head to the unfocused figure lit in green at the side of the bed. She could just barely make out the hologram screen hovering far too close to her face. It distressed her; she didn’t want it to be part of this.

Jasper’s hands left her body. Pearl only just now realized she had resumed lying flat on her back with her legs spread lewdly. In an attempt to bumble her way back to normalcy she tried to sit back up, only to have Jasper guide her right back down with a hand to her chest.

“Take a break,” she said, brusque but not unkind. “Just lay there.”

Pearl wasn’t sure what was going on. It felt like she’d missed some important, key detail about the situation while she’d been suspended in her release for a few, crucial seconds. With blurry eyes, she watched Jasper pace back and forth at the foot of the bed in agitation before she felt cold fingers on her cheek. They turned her head to the side, forcing her to look into the hologram screen once more.

“Did you like that?” Peridot asked, speaking to her as though she was cracked and cognitively impaired.

Pearl managed to nod. Sluggish, lost.

“Yeah?” she prompted once more and Peridot’s face came into focus. She wore a nauseating grin.

“Yes.”

“Do you want some more?”

Pearl had to run the question over again in her own head. More. Again. How many times did they expect her to do this? Part of her wanted to spite Peridot and all of her patronizing questions, but Pearl was well aware that her own life depended on her cooperation. By the time she willed herself to answer, Peridot had already repeated the question several times. Pearl managed to nod her head and answer with a hoarse, “Yes.”

Jasper still paced. It was unclear to Pearl what was wrong, but her arm kept twitching like she was trying to throw a demon from her back.

“Did you hear that, Jasper?” Peridot called. “She wants more.”

That seemed to snap Jasper out of whatever realm she had been trapped in. She turned to the bed once more. What Pearl saw in her eyes was that of a dormant predator awake for the first time in an eternity. It hunted her, whatever it was she saw there, with the broken chains and twisted metal bars of the cage it had been trapped within scattered all around as if someone had shattered the glass from the outside.

In a moment of clarity, Pearl realized she was the one that released the beast. Her hands, her thighs, her every breath had the power to rend apart whatever prison Jasper had constructed around the leviathan that lurked within.

From Peridot’s workbench, Jasper grabbed something. It happened too quickly for Pearl to properly see what, but she did hear Peridot complain about it instantaneously.

“Stop using my things!” she groused as Jasper climbed back up onto the bed.

Pearl’s knees parted as Jasper prowled over her with her characteristic vehemence. This time, however, she felt the blunt end of something smooth and cool press between the swollen lips of her quim. With soft gasp, she sat up only to see that Jasper had grabbed what appeared to be a pneumatic-operated driver from the workbench. The handle end pressed into her, the cushion for the grip made of some pliable silicone and designed to ergonomically accommodate Peridot’s ungainly fingers. Jasper had her hold around the metal end, twisting it as she pushed forward. Copious fluid and saliva guided its way with an ease that had Pearl’s eyelids fluttering closed.

Peridot found every opportunity to complain. “You’re cleaning that when you’re done, Jasper. My stuff...”

_Inappropriate use of very expensive equipment_ , Pearl couldn’t help but think to herself as her body accepted the whole of it. Right up to where the silicone handle ended—she could feel the outermost folds of her quim hugging at the cold metal, smearing polished steel with ripe, saccharine juice.

Just as easily as it glided in, it glided out again. Jasper fucked her with it readily, an encore for her tongue’s earlier performance. The occasional gasp and sigh answered the sweet, wet pops of her quim’s desperate plight to grip at the handle inside of her as it teased and plunged.

But that didn’t seem to be enough for Jasper. Driven and urging, her arm pumped faster, like she wanted more. But Pearl couldn’t give her more, because the handle didn’t reach her depths or, at the very least, wasn’t hitting quite the right note to complete the chord she sought. If Jasper wished for more, she had to earn it, find it. Had to draw it from Pearl without giving her a choice.

Benevolent, Pearl decided to help her.

Pearl reached down, blindly searching with her fingers. They crept their way over the jut of her hips and the mound of her sex, smoothed up the tender of her thighs, and then finally found Jasper’s hand. The unexpected touch made Jasper stutter to a pause. Pearl wrapped her fingers around Jasper’s wrist, encircling it. And then, with surprising ease (for she almost thought she would have to wrestle for control), Pearl guided Jasper’s arm to draw the handle out of her cunt a few inches. She expected protest, but when she cracked her eyes open, she could see Jasper was more astonished than anything, as if she hadn’t yet gotten over the fact that Pearl was bold enough to grab her wrist. It didn’t seem like Peridot could believe it, either, for she had gone all but silent.

With a shuddered breath, Pearl guided Jasper’s hand lower to change the angle. All it needed was just a little change, a small adjustment and Jasper could have her—

Jasper thrust the handle in with a single, fluid motion and Pearl’s loud, uninhibited moan split through the silence. She could feel Jasper shift over her in reply, roused by the sincerity of it. Almost too quickly, she rocked it into Pearl again and was rewarded with another revealing wail.

And just like that, it seemed, Jasper became addicted to the sound of Pearl’s pleasure. She went back for more, seeking her keening cries with ruthless abandon, her tempestuous eyes watching Pearl’s face, always watching. And Pearl _felt_ watched, too, knowing that she had the attention of both gems in the room, as well as that of her two dearest companions hundreds of millions of miles away. It made her flush, wallowing in her own shame like she owned it.

“You like that? You like being—” Jasper’s breath hitched, strangling her words before she could even get them out. She bit down on her lower lip briefly before rolling her mouth silently around the word she’d wanted to say.

She didn’t need to say it. Pearl nodded readily. “Yes, yes,” she breathed, hands still clasped around Jasper’s wrist. She gave a tug, inviting her to push even harder. Let her hips buck up for good measure. “It’s what I—”

“Fuck,” Jasper slurred.

Something was wrong. Jasper’s thrusts faltered and her head dipped down, almost low enough to press her forehead to the mattress. Pearl could see her shoulders shaking.

Peridot piped up again, this time in warning, “ _Jasper_.”

The handle in Pearl’s cunt gave another quaking push, as if Jasper was trying to snap out of her daze. But whatever it was that had gotten a hold of her, it was winning. Almost immediately after, Jasper relinquished the hardware tool, ripping her hand away from Pearl’s grip with violence, like she had just been burned. The driver slipped out of her and landed on the mattress, discarded in all its glistening glory.

Jasper clawed at the collar of her uniform, fighting it, tearing it over her shoulders. Pearl watched with a horrified fascination as it happened, feeling like she was watching a creature’s primal, grueling escape from its chrysalis. An emergence, a battle that was not pretty or graceful, but rather a bitter, lethal fight to evade Gaia’s callous clutch. For the world, Pearl could not imagine what Jasper was _doing_.

Then, when Jasper reared back in an attempt to rip her arms free from her sleeves, Pearl saw the telling silhouette curving up against her lower belly. It was trapped behind fabric and revealing her body’s complete and unapologetic exodus of her cock. At some point, Jasper must have lost control of herself.

Pearl’s breath came faster.

Oh, no.

In Jasper’s mad scramble to get her uniform down over her breasts, she managed to somehow cut herself—one of her biceps sported an irritated scratch down the length of it. She wrenched the thing down around her waist with the same unrelenting fury, not at all attempting to be more careful because Pearl watched as she once again raked herself along the contours of her ribs as she grappled with fabric. She felt it sting—Pearl heard her hiss—but it she kept going anyway until she’d managed to shove the uniform down to her thighs. A thread of clear slick stubbornly clung to the inner seam of Jasper’s pants, a testament to just how wet she had been the whole time.

“ _Jasper!_ ” Peridot cried.

Too impatient to struggle with her clothes any longer, Jasper lunged for Pearl once more. She landed atop her with both hands planted on either side of her head to hold herself up, their hips crushed together. Pearl could feel the pulsing heat of Jasper’s cock pressed betwixt their bodies. Jasper wasted no time in beginning to rut. Pearl’s clit caught on the rungs lining the underside of it, feeling every single one as Jasper thrust up, and every single one as she reeled back. The muscles in her thighs jerked with each one, her sensitivity whetted.

Jasper’s breath was at her throat. Pearl could see nothing but white hair and a finely contoured shoulder. She could feel the press of Jasper’s breasts against her body, voluminous enough for her to feel swathed in them. So much happened at once, it was all she could do to keep up. The gnawing arousal in her belly grew bolder than she’d felt in a long time, urging her to cant her hips  and let her pelvis fall open in preparation for what she knew was to come. She could feel her body opening to Jasper, a fresh wave of tantalizing slick seeping forth to lure her in. Even at the very core of her body, she could feel muscles long forsaken awakening with jolts and rattling palpitations. She _opened_. And then, against her better judgment— _no, no, she shouldn’t be doing this, she promised she’d never go back to this_ —she wrapped her arms around Jasper’s neck to pull her closer. Her lips pressed against Jasper’s throat. “ _Give me_.”

A rough and ragged noise erupted from Jasper. Her hips jerked with a feral enthusiasm, needing several tries to find the entrance she sought, never quite finding the right angle and too impatient to slow down and only found berth when Pearl reached down and helped her, guided her with a trembling hand. And then her hips snapped down, ramming them together with finality and the sound of skin-on-skin.

Pearl could feel Jasper echo her cry somewhere above her.  Or around her. It was hard to tell anymore.

“ _Jasper, stop! You can’t just_ —”

Neither of them paid Peridot any mind. There was no pulling them apart now.

When they began to move as one, Pearl pulled her knees up and wrapped as much of her legs as she could around that thick waist. Her heels found comfortable divots somewhere between the bulk of Jasper’s back and pelvis and they dug in relentlessly. She could feel the muscles beneath bunch and flex when Jasper arched and bowed in all her tremendous power. Jasper fucked her with all the frantic fervor and savoring devotion of a lover’s last goodbye.  And Pearl may have been yelping and crying out through it all, but she could hardly hear herself anymore. Everything she felt and did with Jasper thrusting into her was automatic, symphonic.

This was such a terrible idea, Pearl knew. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew. And every time she felt the brutish thud of the head of Jasper’s cock meeting the barrier between channel and womb, she could feel her body asking for it, responding to it. It knew, it remembered.  She could feel the lower stretch of Jasper’s belly grown soft and extended where it rubbed up against Pearl’s own and she knew it wasn’t going to be much longer until—

“ _Fu_ —” Jasper’s hold tightened suddenly, her hands curling until each and every claw was hooked beneath the flesh of Pearl’s hips to keep her there as she plunged in one last time.

Pearl felt the acute lurch of pain as her skin was punctured in ten different places, shrieked about it for a moment, but then fell silent as she felt herself beginning to fill. It had started. Her body’s most awaited reward, most treasured of incentives. With Jasper seated as deeply as she could, thick mineral-rich fluid pumped directly in without any hesitation. It was hot, scorching from the natural heat of Jasper’s core. Pearl whimpered in anything but misery, despite the claws fastened into her. Her wide eyes stared up to meet Jasper’s, watching as her mouth opened in a silent scream. From the looks of it, she was enjoying a very nice orgasm and Pearl very much wanted to join her...

Soon. Soon, she knew. Pearl’s toes were curling at the build-up, feeling muscles and tissues beginning to stretch under the burgeoning volume of release inside her. Like a rubber band being pulled taut, like a violin string being tightened, tightened. She could hear the chord singing, screaming in her ears. What had once been Jasper’s now belonged to Pearl and her belly strained outwards to prove it. Closer, closer.

Pearl nearly cried waiting for it. Little, chopped noises sobbed from her with every shallow breath, growing steadily higher in pitch and frequency as she filled. Her heels tightened into Jasper’s back to pull her closer as if that would help it go faster. It only served to make Jasper grunt against Pearl’s neck, too overcome to do anything else. She shook now, having endured her intense bliss for many long moments while Pearl still lay beneath her suffering having to wait and wait and—

Finally, blessedly, Pearl’s body decided it had what it wanted. Like a vice, every single muscle she possessed snapped tight to the bone. An involuntary, droning sound pushed from her lungs; it wasn’t pretty or sweet or anything but carnal and uncontrolled. She could hear herself, but she sounded so far away.

It was easy to file away resentment for the feelings of total satisfaction Pearl received when this happened. But here in the moment, it was difficult to consider all that. It was difficult to do anything but feel full and sated. No other orgasm felt like these ones. Pearl had tried it a hundred different ways, but never managed to gain the same catastrophic and omniscient experience as she did the moment her womb clenched with force enough to boil stardust into vapor. There was nothing else like it.

Pearl was still trying to scream once she came out the other side of it. Couldn’t scream, of course, because her lungs ran out of air long ago. Her eyes were still wide and unfocused, still, when she gained control of her body once more. It was the muscles of her chest she loosened first so she could take a great breath of air. Then her arms, which she had somehow managed to pull close to her chest. Finally her legs, which were still wrapped too tightly around Jasper’s waist. She let her thighs fall open. The only thing that didn’t manage to unwind were the muscles at her core, strung tight around that pocket of liquid inside her. Muscles she hadn’t used in millennia. They ached from disuse, pinching.

Her vision swam and flickered at the edges, but she had enough consciousness left to look up at Jasper. She expected to see her gazing down with the utmost satisfaction. Perhaps even a bit of that smug, indulgent air to her that she always seemed to adopt after thoroughly sating Pearl. She might say something indolent and slightly condescending, give her a pat on the cheek, and send her back to her chamber to clean herself up.

Jasper was staring down at her hands. Her fingers were coated in a blue-hued blood that Pearl recognized as her own. And then Pearl watched as Jasper’s eyes focused past them to take in the enormity of the mess they’d made. Fluid from both of them—Pearl’s clear juice and Jasper’s milky, red and iron-speckled cum that steamed in the cool air—marbled together on their hips and thighs and smeared all along the mattress. She looked, too, at Pearl’s rounded belly. Her expression was, if anything, haunted.

“Jasper,” Peridot sounded frightened. “Did you get permission to do that? Did you...?”

As though her mind was a hundred miles away, Jasper finally looked up, meeting Peridot’s gaze. She sat, unable to speak for a long moment. “I...I...”

Peridot’s breath caught in her throat and Pearl noticed the broadcast was no longer recording. “You’re mad. What did you just _do?_ ”

“I—I don’t.”

Peridot was already taking steps backwards.

Something had gone very wrong.

“Don’t.” Jasper’s eyes were darkened.

“I have to.”

There was a clenching, unpleasant storm brewing in Pearl’s gut. Physically, she could feel the effects of her body bearing down in preparation for incubation. She pressed a hand over her abdomen, feeling the muscles reeling and twitching beneath. A soft, almost inaudible whimper escaped.

It went unnoticed. Jasper glared at Peridot with frightening, blood-stained claws curled in her direction. “Don’t. Delete it. _Delete the footage right now._ ”

“I have to report this!”

Jasper scrambled up off the bed, shaking, imposing even with her suit bunched down around her thighs. “Don’t you dare tell her.”

“Oh, like she’s not going to figure it out?” Peridot jeered, taking another few cautionary steps backwards. “We’re just going to show up to Homeworld with an incubating pearl on our hands and she’s not going to know?”

“We’ll just tell her she was like that when we found her.” Jasper advanced again.

Past the point of hysterics, Peridot was already fiddling with something on her hologram screen. Her fingers were shaking and she kept missing the icons. “She’ll know it wasn’t, because it wasn’t in my _report_. I report everything. It’s what I _do_.”

“ _Stop right now or I’ll make you_.”

There was no more point in arguing. Peridot glanced at the open doorway. Her knees buckled like that of a spooked fawn. Jasper’s eyes darted to the doorway, too, her shoulders arching forward.

It all happened so fast. Peridot screamed and ran for the door as fast as her legs could carry her, the sound of metal clambering frantically across metal. In that same moment, Jasper lunged for her. She needed only two strides to make it to the door, her arms spread wide and ready to entrap her prey before it got too far. She probably could have caught Peridot, too. Probably could have pinned her down, ripped the screen from her hands, and deleted all the footage needed to incriminate her. Very easily, by the sound of the metallic crash that echoed from the hallway that indicated Peridot had either tripped and fallen or run slap-bang into a wall.

But in the same moment, Pearl’s abdomen cramped up fiercely, clenching into a cruel, vengeful knot. She cried out and curled onto her side. Her limbs drew into her body, leaving her in a pathetic tangle on the mattress.

Jasper paused in the doorway. For some reason, all it took was one little cry followed by a withered moan to stop her in her tracks. Through her daze, Pearl could see the thoughts spinning in Jasper’s head as she glanced out into the hallway, then back at Pearl, then out into the hallway again. As soon as Jasper made up her mind, she cursed. Loudly, profusely, and crudely. She was still swearing by the time she knelt down next to Pearl. “Fuck. Shit. Fuck,” she said. “Alright. Come here. Come here.” Then Jasper’s hands took her and rolled her over onto her back once more. “Come on. Let me help you through it.”

Pearl writhed, trying to huddle into herself as pain lanced through her. It wasn’t normally like this, she wanted to explain. She just hadn’t done it in so long.

A carefully-placed, well-intentioned thumb found its way to Pearl’s clit. She jerked and shrilled, too sensitive for it to feel like anything more than overwhelming.

“Shh, alright. Just let me help you,” Jasper insisted. She adjusted her angle, this time only rubbing up against the side of it. Her thumb danced around it in circles, indirect and gentle.

It helped, it really did. Pearl could sense Jasper’s eyes on her face, watching her as she winced from pain, then gasped from pleasure. The two sensations mingled together, blending into a perfect amalgamation until it was very difficult to tell one from the other. That was the nature of these things, she supposed. There was always pressure and deflagration. Always racing blood and loss of control.  Reflex. Pleasure and pain held hands and danced together in the fiery pit at the core of her, battling and making love to each other in fluid, orchestral movements.

Pearl quaked and gripped at the edges of the mattress, nearly ripping it up from its frame.

“Don’t fight it.”

Pearl stopped fighting.

She felt the gush of fluid leave her before she even knew what was happening. The muscles throbbed inside her with a renewed force and energy that she didn’t even know what to make of. She tightened up once more in agonizing release, choked on the cry raked from her throat, and then fell limp once more. Boneless, exhausted, and, for once, relaxed. Her pelvis felt heavy and gravid, but whatever struggle had been going on inside her abdomen moments ago had ended.

Pearl felt damp. She had been sweating. Odd. She normally never did that. Beneath her was a seeping puddle of unsavory fluids. Her thighs were sticky, her throat was sore. She had trouble sitting up. With a discontent noise, she attempted to roll over, only to be stopped by firm hand. With heavy eyes, she looked to Jasper. Pearl was not impressed. “I need to move,” she informed. “It’s disgusting.”

“Where do you think you’re going to go?”

She paused. There was no answer she could give to that. And so, in exhausted compliance, she sank back down.

Jasper stood up and tugged her uniform back up around her waist. It was a rumpled mess, but her broad hips kept it from slipping back down again when she bent and reached for Pearl. “Come on,” she said. And then she tugged Pearl to the edge of the bed and picked her up.

It was a quiet journey through the ship’s long hallways. Pearl spent most of it staring into Jasper’s shoulder, wondering what she had just let happen. Her quim hadn’t even stopped leaking yet and she dribbled excess cum all down Jasper’s front. Jasper didn’t seem to care. Her own expression was distant, and Pearl got the feeling the gravity of her mistake was beginning to truly sink in. This was a mistake, after all. Pearl was certain they did not intend to have her incubating by the time they got her to Homeworld. She wondered, with a sinking feeling, how this was going to affect her chances of survival once they got there.

Jasper made a sharp turn and they ended up in a room quite a bit larger than Peridot’s. Two windows framed the back wall; Jupiter still wandered by. A chaise instead of a bed commanded the center of the room, another lounge sat closer to the window. There was a secondary control panel in one corner with a number of detachable screens, currently offline. A sliding panel on the adjacent wall revealed another room connected to this one. This must have been where Jasper lived. At least, while she was on this ship.

“Can you clean yourself up?” Jasper asked.

Pearl shook her head. Some gems could rid their skin of foreign substances through sheer will alone. Pearl could not.

They slipped into the side-room and the light flicked on. It was a much smaller room, equipped with strange appliances and handles. But as soon as Pearl saw the hose and nozzle hanging from the ceiling, she remembered. Some things on Homeworld, she supposed, never changed.

The metal floor was cold against her body when Jasper set her down on the inset rectangle of floor. She leaned up against the wall, glass and steel at her back. Jasper tugged the hose and nozzle from the ceiling and it made a mechanical ratcheting noise the whole way down. Water splashed at Pearl’s feet. It was cold. After so long on Earth, Pearl forgot that only humans heated their water. Gems never had and never would.

Jasper crouched over her, holding the water stream steady so that Pearl could ease her body into it. She started with her thighs, sighing as she watched it all run off down through the drain grate in streaks of white flecked with iron and her own blue blood. To be thorough about it, she reached down between them and rubbed tenderly at the folds of her quim. There was slick everywhere, caught in every little crease and fold her fingers found. Jasper watched. Pearl tried not to let it bother her.

“What are you going to do about Peridot?” she asked in an attempt to draw attention away from how her fingers searched the swollen crevices of her quim.

“I’ll take care of her later,” Jasper murmured.

“She’s going to get you in trouble, isn’t she?”

She scoffed. “Already has.” And then Jasper got tired of watching Pearl trying to unsuccessfully pull the remnants of release from inside herself and batted her hand away. She brought the mouth of the hose right up against her quim and let the water rush in.

Pearl shivered, but did not flinch back. The water helped draw out the last pooled pocket of mess and it went racing down the drain with the rest of it. The sweat from her forehead and arms went next, then blood on her hips where ten perfect puncture marks pitted her skin. While Pearl fussed over the wounds, Jasper slipped out of her uniform to rinse herself down as well. All in all, she had just as much blood and cum on her body as Pearl had. Though her cock had long since retreated back from whence it came, Jasper’s cunt was a blushing, aroused red. Still leaking, too, by the frustrated sounds she made after having to go back and wash it several times. The muscles in her waist moved beneath her skin when she propped her foot up against the wall and tried for the third time to rinse it clean.

Perhaps she was just still aroused.

Jasper watched her with reservation when she led her back into the main room, as if afraid Pearl wouldn’t be able to carry herself anymore, as if the round weight settled into the basin of her pelvis would be too much to handle. Clearly she’d never seen an incubating pearl before, for Pearl could walk just fine. She was tired, but fine. Jasper led her to the chaise and had her lay down, still damp.

“Stay here,” she said.

Pearl watched her turn for the door. “Where are you going?”

Jasper just waved a dismissive hand, not even bothering to turn around. “To take care of something.” With locked shoulders, she stalked away.

 

* * *

 

Pearl went quiescent for what was perhaps a couple hours. She was considerably drier, although part of her hair remained damp where her head leaned up against her hand.

She couldn’t see Jupiter anymore. The control panels in the corner of the room were back online and casting a rectangular slice of light across her body. In the distance, Pearl could hear screaming. A lot of screaming. Well, it was just one voice screaming, but it was a terrible, raking wail that echoed down the corridor. It was unmistakably Peridot. No other voice sounded quite like that.

And then Pearl spotted the pile of familiar prosthetic limbs and fingers stacked in the corner of the room. Two arms, two legs, ten fingers.

“I can make her shut up if she’s bothering you.”

Pearl jumped. She hadn’t noticed Jasper sitting silhouetted at the window with a control panel braced in her lap. A stylus poked out of the corner of her mouth, balanced precariously between two fangs. At some point, she had dressed herself and pushed that mane of hair out of her face until she looked a lot less like the unbound, desperate creature she had been tangled up in earlier and much more like the imperial escort Pearl had first seen on the beach two weeks ago.

“Did she wake you?” Jasper asked.

Pearl shook her head.

“Mm,” she pulled the stylus from between her lips and leaned back. Jasper was shameless about where her eyes went. “Does that hurt?”

The gaze was focused on her abdomen, so Pearl down at it, too. “This?” she couldn’t help but let out a wry chuckle at the absurdity of the question. “No. Do your arms hurt you?”

“It is really like that? For you? Just another...thing?”

“Just another thing,” she confirmed.

Jasper seemed to understand and gave an affirmative, slow nod.

“It did hurt, though. Before.” Pearl’s eyelids grew heavy and she shifted into a more comfortable slump against the chaise. “It doesn’t normally hurt like that.”

“I did that?” Jasper looked strangely culpable.

“No,” she was quick to shake her head. “No, it’s just been so long, I don’t think my body was ready for it. It’s been thousands of years. So that’s why. It wasn’t you. I promise.” Pearl was bemused with her own concern to reassure Jasper, of all people.

“Not since you’ve been on Earth?”

“Not since before then, even.”

“How did a valuable little pearl like you manage that?”

Pearl shrugged one shoulder and answered honestly. “Love.”

Jasper’s disinterest was immediate. She derided the very idea of it by turning her attention back to the control panel leaned up against her thigh for good.

Somewhere in the distance, Peridot shrieked with renewed force.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my betas! For this chapter, I got help specifically from:
> 
> lesbianspiderqueen.tumblr.com  
> fuzzbig.tumblr.com


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beginning of Act II.

Beneath skin and muscle churned the beginnings of a geode. Milky and boiling, a bolus of chemistry that raged on beneath Pearl’s fingertips. Every once in a while, as she lay reclined on the chaise in Jasper’s quarters, she could feel the pop and crackle of a storm within as it struggled to settle despite the intense pressure crushing its atoms together.

To be frank, it was exhausting. Pearl drifted in and out of quiescence and time seemed to pass in an odd, fragmented way. Sometimes she opened her eyes and was alone. Other times, she could hear Jasper’s footsteps as she moved around behind her and knew she was being watched. 

Once, she woke up to the sound of Jasper having an argument. She sat at the control panel so Pearl caught only the silhouette of her movements out of the periphery of her vision.

“I need to speak to Yellow Diamond,” Jasper growled into a microphone. After a hefty delay, a muffled reply met her and she scoffed at it. “No, I _need_ to speak to her. Now.” 

Another delay. Another reply.

“What do you mean? I can’t wait until I get back to Homeworld to speak to her. Connect me to her _now_. Now, do you hear me? I—” The drone of the call ended abruptly, revealing that she had been disconnected. Jasper raged and Pearl heard the crash of expensive tech being swept off the table to clatter onto the floor. Some cursing. 

Pearl closed her eyes again and shifted her naked body into a more comfortable position on the chaise. It was warm.

 

* * *

 

The next time Pearl opened her eyes—hours or days later, she couldn’t tell—there was a shadow over her. The outline of wild hair and a broad shoulder were framed against the dim green light of the console screen. It was only Jasper, Pearl knew, and so she slipped back into quiescence.

 

* * *

 

Peridot was screaming again.

 

* * *

 

“She won’t speak to me? _Why?_ No. No, you get Yellow Diamond there and have her tell me that herself. I have an incubating pearl that needs—” Another disconnect. Jasper slammed the microphone down. “ _Fuck_.”

 

* * *

 

Heat washed over Pearl’s chest. It wasn’t enough to wake her, but the next puff of hot air across her face was.

When she opened her eyes, she was met with the sight of Jasper arched over her, her legs straddled across the width of the chaise with thighs spread, one arm gripping the cushion above Pearl’s head to hold herself up. The other arm was stretching down, down her body where her hand disappeared somewhere between her legs. From the way Jasper’s eyes were closed and her body jerked in an uncoordinated, sensual way, Pearl could deduce where her hand was. 

For several long moments, Pearl watched Jasper huff and roll her hips. Felt the jittering clench of her fingers in the cushion by her head. Smelled the iron basking on her skin. When it became clear that Jasper was not going to open her eyes and notice she was awake, Pearl cleared her throat. A demure, quiet sound.

It was more than enough to jolt Jasper from her reverie. She bolted upright, caught in the act. Yet she didn’t even have the mind to pull her hand away from her cunt where her fingers were still buried. 

A beat passed between them, Jasper looking both culpable and shocked with Pearl staring up at her expectantly.

“You were supposed to stay quiescent,” Jasper explained. 

“Mm.” Pearl was not particularly impressed.

Another long moment passed, made even more uncomfortable by Jasper’s refusal to avoid her gaze. Then, “Can I at least finish?” 

“Does it look like I’m in any position to stop you?”

Jasper let her eyes traverse down the length of Pearl’s body. Limp and exhausted with most of her energy going towards incubation. The heat radiating from her rounded abdomen revealed just how much strength it sapped from her. Satisfied that Pearl couldn’t—wouldn’t—do anything to stop her, Jasper tentatively began to finger herself once more. 

Pearl stared up at her, watching with a mercilessly unblinking gaze. She expected it would intimidate Jasper enough to at least make her uncomfortable, make her look away or at least close her eyes again. It was the only form of power she had over her. Yet Jasper’s gaze remained unwavering. In fact, she met her eyes readily, snagging her lower lip between a sharp set of teeth as she resumed her pace.

The humid scent of arousal engulfed Pearl as Jasper adjusted herself on the chaise. Her thighs parted wider as she straddled the mattress, no longer fearful of disturbing Pearl from her quiescence. The cushion dipped down on either side of Pearl’s hips where Jasper’s knees dug in. 

Pearl could feel the brush of Jasper’s knuckles across the gravid apex of her abdomen, rhythmic with the firm, dedicated cycling of her hand.

“Do you prefer all your pearls like this?” Pearl asked, tilting her head to act trite. 

Jasper rumbled out something that was not a word.

“Was that a ‘yes?’”

“Shh.” Jasper gave her a stern look. A command, really.

With that, Pearl pressed her lips together and leaned her head back. She watched in silence as Jasper continued with fervor to pleasure herself. Their eyes stayed locked. In Jasper’s golden irises, Pearl could see the reflection of her own face. Watched the honey hue boil into the color of inflamed star fire as Jasper’s breaths quickened. Could feel them against her neck. Hot and humid.

A dark sound erupted from Jasper’s throat as her back arched. Pearl watched it all happen, the outline of her proud mane and rolling hips silhouetted in the low light. Watched the way Jasper’s breasts sat full and bared against her broad barrel-chest. She moved with a powerful grace all her own.

And then, suddenly, Jasper hissed like she had just been stabbed. Her hand jerked away from her cunt. For the first time since they began this encounter, Jasper broke eye contact with Pearl to glare down at her beclawed hand instead. 

She had stabbed herself. Pearl could sympathize; those claws had caught her in unpleasant ways more times than she could count in the few weeks that she had spent in their company. Barely above a whisper, she said, “Ah. Those don’t feel so nice, do they?”

Jasper looked back up at her, still holding out her hand like it had personally offended her, and seemed genuinely surprised when Pearl spoke. It took her a while to process it, as if needing to decipher a foreign language. 

Before Pearl could gauge what was going on in Jasper’s head, there was a hand on her hip, nudging at her, pulling her closer. And then she felt slippery heat gliding along the rise of her belly. She gasped and nearly managed to sit upright to look down at where the plentiful folds of Jasper’s cunt parted so she could rub herself up against the prominence of Pearl’s abdomen; it radiated with generous heat and was taut with all the compact muscles knotting inside beneath that porcelain skin. It took only a moment before Jasper seemed to decide this was, indeed, suitable to rub up against. She was grinding her hips in lewd, unapologetic circles before Pearl could even formulate a complaint.

Behind the grandiose plot of white hair that trimmed the threshold of Jasper’s cunt, Pearl found that whenever Jasper drew back, she could catch glimpses of the slick, flushed clit she so desperately tried to stimulate. Pearl eyed dazedly, knowing very well that what she saw now was only the very summit of what lay beneath, though the beast Pearl had become acquainted with looked to be dormant for now. She didn’t see it lurking in Jasper’s eyes this evening.

With every thrust of Jasper’s hips, Pearl was jolted against the bed. Her breasts bounced gently on her chest. It almost felt like she was being fucked. Almost. Except that it was quiet. No rushing in her ears, none of her own gasps and cries rattling about in her skull. All she heard was the creaking of the bed beneath her and Jasper’s heavy breaths as she struggled to her completion. 

Finally, Jasper stuttered to an end. It didn’t look all that satisfying. It was a silent orgasm, marked only by the way her head rolled back on her shoulders and her eyes fluttered closed. Her chest heaved once, twice before her hips gave a final, half-hearted lurch. Then it was over.

“Good girl,” Jasper breathed. Her head bowed in something that looked like exhaustion. She must have tired herself out for once. 

That was the end of it. Pearl watched with disinterest as Jasper climbed off her and dressed with her back turned. With dissatisfaction, she eyed the strip of slick smeared across her belly. Quite a mess Jasper had left her with, and no way to clean herself up. Though she supposed Jasper wouldn’t protest if she got up and waddled her way to the shower chamber to wash off. Pearl frowned and contemplated whether she should go do that now or wait at least a few tactful minutes.

Abruptly, Jasper spoke. “We reach the System Warp tomorrow,” she said, “so be ready.” She sat hunched at the foot of the chaise and adjusted one of her boots. She didn’t even afford a backwards glance at Pearl when she said it. Like she didn’t want to look at Pearl, couldn’t look at Pearl. 

Strange thing, Pearl thought. Jasper seemed to have little trouble looking at her when they were locked in a carnal embrace. Now, afterwards, she seemed riddled with something that looked very much like shame.

“Did you like it?” Pearl whispered, amazed at how soft and yet pervasive her own voice was. It sounded like mockery; it was supposed to be mockery. Quiet, mouse-like lampoon of the intimacy they had just shared, phrased so delicately that there was no way Pearl could readily be punished for it. 

Jasper’s shoulders tensed, buckling so tight that she could see the muscles where they pinched together. No answer from her. Just silence before she stood and left the room.

It was as good as any answer she could give.

 

* * *

 

The System Warp. The last time she saw it had been thousands of years ago. Pearl closed her eyes and she could see the past written on the inside of her lids—she had been on the bridge of a ship, standing at Rose’s side as she led the fleet into this new territory to scour the solar system for planets worth colonizing. An adventure, a journey side-by-side with her Great Love. That had been so very long ago.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself on the bridge of a different ship amongst different gems. Incubating, standing beside Jasper instead of Rose, watching the System Warp grow closer instead of further away. The planar crystalline structure large enough to engulf an entire ship still lay suspended in space after all these years, only a couple million miles past the reaches of Pluto’s orbit.

It felt like she was looking right down into the throat of Homeworld before it swallowed them all up.

Peridot concentrated at the control panel to bring the ship in closer. At some point, Jasper had given her the prosthetics back, because she looked more or less back to her usual self, minus the frown on her face that turned down at the corners more than normal. Her skin and hair still glistened damp as if she had stepped from a shower not an hour ago, so she must not have been free for very long.

On the other side of Jasper stood Lapis. Stubbornly silent, though there was something new about the way she eyed Peridot through lazy lashes and the curled pout of her lips. 

“Trajectory clear,” Peridot rasped, voice much more raw than Pearl had ever heard it. She leaned over the control panel to fiddle with coordinates; her vertebrae bent in an arched line down her back. “We’re within range of the System Warp.”

Beside Pearl, Jasper wore her dark cape draped over her shoulders. “Take us in,” she said, then folded her arms over her chest.

Unconsciously, Pearl’s hands came to rest upon her rounded abdomen. At about halfway through the incubation period, her stomach had grown considerably smaller as the pressure reduced the geode in size. The crystallization had probably just begun. Perhaps she was almost two weeks into it. I would take another two weeks for the geode to reach completion. She could no longer feel the snaps and pops of boiling liquid and everything inside had since calmed down from a raging storm into a rolling churn. And yet there was still no mistaking that she was thoroughly incubating just from glancing at her profile. Homeworld knew she was, but even if they didn’t, they would be able to see the evidence of it. Pearl would be lying if she said her throat didn’t clench in fear when she thought of it.

For so long, Homeworld had seemed lightyears upon lightyears away, ensuring safety for everyone on Earth. And now, all of a sudden, she was reminded that they were really only one System Warp away.

Peridot spoke over the radio to obtain clearance. Muted voices murmured back.

It was time.

The inner mechanism of the warp began to spin inside its cradle, ginning up. Still miles and miles away from the ship, it was difficult to conceptualize of the enormity of the structure that woke from its slumber in the cold vacuum of space. Pearl watched through the window as it began to glow with heat and energy and, finally, with pure light as it ejected toward the ship to envelope them.

The stars melted away. Everything went oddly quiet as they were propelled through the physical world riding upon a stream of light.

Pearl shifted, took a deep breath. Closed her eyes.

Her eyes blinked open in surprise as she felt the soft caress of knuckles upon her cheek, only to see Jasper looking down at her with a peculiar expression on her face. Jasper must have noticed her distress. The touch, rendered gentle with the way her claws turned away from Pearl’s face, attempted to be strangely comforting. It felt like a promise. And if Pearl had taken any stock in Jasper’s ability to protect her from her fate, it might have meant something. But she couldn’t. The numerous failed attempts to contact Yellow Diamond over the last few weeks were proof of that—and Pearl was sure that there had been more attempts at contacting her that she didn’t hear while deep in the quagmire of quiescence. Whatever power Jasper had was either gone or suspended. The tension written into the buckle of Jasper’s brows revealed that she was well aware of that uncertainty.

And then they broke eye contact.

The light of the System Warp died in a rush of sound and static as they broke through to the other side. Pearl gasped as she looked from the window, soaking in her first glimpse of what Homeworld had become in her absence.

She recognized this place. The Midnight City. Perpetually draped in twilight, the sky was a canvas smeared in streaks of purple and smoky blue, cast with the light of a million stars like speckles of paint tossed from an artist’s brush. The colors seeped into the horizon to meet the hazy arcs of the mountains that rolled in the distance. A jagged and vivacious line of skyscrapers stretched across the land as far as the eye could see. Familiar silhouettes of reaching hands and upturned faces breached the skyline in that breathtaking display of gem architecture. Three neon beacons of light pierced the heavens; yellow, blue, white...

The ship glided down from the warp and Pearl’s head swiveled as she watched buildings and structures go by. Some of it old architecture, some of it new like she had never seen before. She hadn’t even realized she’d stepped away from Jasper’s side until her hands pressed up against the glass. The violet hue of everlasting night streamed between her fingers.

The Midnight City. She had been created here. Once upon a time, it had been all she had ever known. Her eyes squinted against the glare as she looked for the old landmarks of her youth. She saw the Temple first. Rose’s Temple with the curling spires rising above the western skyline. It was impossible to miss even though the pink beacon was gone.  

Against her better judgement, she let her eyes travel northward. The silhouette of two arms with cupped, proffered hands rising above the city marked the building for which Pearl had spent most of her life. The light that usually poured from the palms of the sculpted hands was gone, too.

And then the horizon disappeared as Peridot lowered the ship into the docking bay. There were hundreds of other ships housed here, all constructed in the shape of body parts—hands, feet, arms, noses, eyes, torsos. Some small, some so large that they were only partially visible through the rafters and large metal doors that partitioned the docking warehouse. The ships looked as though they were made to come together to form machines of immense proportions, like giant mechanical fusions. It wouldn’t surprise Pearl if this was the sort of technology Homeworld was working on now, given how much they twisted the idea of what fusion was supposed to be about.

Giant women made of metal.

Much preferable to giant women made of love, according to Homeworld’s callous ideals.

The ship gave a shuddering hiss as it came to rest in its mooring. The systems flickered and then reverted to hibernation.

Peridot pulled her hands away from the control panel and took a step back. “Docking procedure is complete. Disembarking will commence.”

The walk to the gangway was an uncomfortable one. No one said anything for the longest time, though the tension between Jasper and Peridot was palpable. It was only when the gangway was within their view that Jasper finally broke the silence. “Not a word,” she hissed.

Peridot bristled in return. “I promise I won’t tell.”

“Because if you do, I will find you and I will—”

_“I said I won’t!”_

The door to the docking bay opened up. They were met by an opal, this one with a white diamond on her uniform. She held out a hand to stop them as she read directives off a screen clutched to her chest. “You,” she pointed at Lapis Lazuli, “you are free to go. The rest of you...” her eyes skimmed over the three of them until they landed pointedly on Pearl’s abdomen. Her eyebrows raised in the picture of barely concealed bemusement. “...take the C-15 shuttle to meet with Yellow Diamond. She requests that you hold audience with her.”

Pearl could physically feel Jasper tensing up beside her.

With a bounce in her step, Lapis sauntered away, looking very pleased with not being caught up in the whole mess with the rest of them. Over her shoulder, she called to Peridot. “I’ll wait here for you, then.”

Moony, Peridot simply waved to her, her robotic joints clicking. “Yeah, alright.”

Jasper looked more than a little disgusted at the display. “Come on,” she barked. Her cape swept behind her as she took the lead.

Pearl spent the shuttle ride with her hands and face pressed to the glass of the window, watching the city go by in streaks of filtered and dusky hues. The color of Amethyst’s eyes raced past her, the color of Garnet’s skin. The color of Rose’s lips. Then it all disappeared as they zipped through a tunnel, only to burst back into the light moments later. City streets brimmed with gems going about their life. She could see them milling about below. Shuttles and other smaller transit units raced along the grid-like streets. Life. After all this time, how was it that Pearl was surprised that Homeworld went on without her? It went on like everything else; the gems here continued with their lives and the galaxies kept turning.

  

* * *

 

“I don’t know why I have to come with you,” Peridot complained, gazing out the back window of the shuttle as if she would have much rather stayed with Lapis. “If I get in trouble because of you, I’m going to be so mad.”

“I hope Yellow Diamond demotes you for being an untrustworthy sycophant,” Jasper retorted.

“Well at least I _know_ she’s demoting you.”

The engine-like growl from Jasper’s end of the shuttle was enough to end the conversation.

The yellow beacon lit up the sky ahead of them as they approached the temple. A yellow diamond-shaped facet turned up toward the heavens, like a slice cut out of the middle tower at an odd, oblique angle so that it looked as though the top portion was missing.

Few gems milled about the terminal. It was nearly empty. Likely most gems were already at their stations—anyone bumbling about in the terminal at this hour was likely late.

Lining the hallways were dozens of steely-gazed quartz-type warriors in full battle armor. Statuesque sentries. Ametrines, agates, jaspers, prasiolites. One of the newest Kindergarten batches. All of them under Yellow Diamond’s command and fulfilling the quite frankly droll task of playing toy soldier while safe in the halls of her temple. A long time ago, Jasper had been one of those sentries. When she had been younger and wet behind the ears, she too had been required to stand guard for hours on end. Those days were long ago, however. Now her quartz brethren bowed their head to her as she passed, a sign of respect for a commanding officer, a general. If she watched closely, however, she could see that their eyes tracked Pearl the whole way.

Jasper very much didn’t like that. Whether they eyed her out of curiosity or desire, it mattered not. The prickle of annoyance had Jasper’s lips curling.

Pearl didn’t belong to them. Wasn’t for their hungry, undeserving eyes. She walked with a slowed, awkwardly paced gait and had one hand braced on her lower back to accommodate the weight of the geode she carried, her clothing stretched tight around her midsection and completely oblivious to the eyes that followed her. Her head bowed to stare at the floor as she walked.

The agates and ametrines gawped. The jaspers and prasiolites turned their heads.

When one unlucky agate ahead craned her neck to get a better look at Pearl, that was all it took to snap Jasper’s patience. She lunged forth, breaking away from Pearl and Peridot with a roar loud enough to have the two of them jumping in fright as she took her quarrel directly to the source.

The interplay between quartz-types was physical. No words, no finesse. It was nothing more than a display—display of size and prowess and teeth against the smaller, younger agate that nearly brought their foreheads crashing together. A threat.  As their eyes locked and the heat of their breath mingled between their faces, a ripple of sudden exhilaration went through the hall. Once stoic soldiers became suddenly riled by the prospect of a conflict in their midst. They fed off the energy of conflagration, rallying around the electric display of dominance with no more discretion than a pack of dogs.

Nothing needed to be said. The unlucky agate withered under the heat of Jasper’s snarling face pressed close to hers and broke eye contact with immediacy. And when Jasper took a few victorious steps back and let her gaze sweep the hall, she took satisfaction in the fact that no one was looking at Pearl anymore. They averted their eyes to the floor instead.

There. She put an end to that nonsense well enough.

With that, she composed herself once more and returned to her companions to continue their walk.

“Stars, Jasper,” Peridot hissed, still looking flustered at the outburst. “Really?”

Jasper answered with a disinterested grunt. Peridots didn’t do things like quartz-types did. She wouldn’t understand. In fact, she’d like to see Peridot thrown to a pack of fifty or so quartz gems and see how far she’d get trying to talk all her logic and vernacular to them.

In all reality, Peridot would probably have them queuing up to fuck her in the barracks before too long. She’d probably do just fine. Fit right in.

Before Peridot had the opportunity to mutter something else under her breath, they passed the threshold into Yellow Diamond’s chamber. A vast temple, ancient. She sat in her cathedra with legs crossed, already surveying her three guests. Her index finger rubbed over her lower lip, a point of habit when she was deep in thought. With piercing eyes, she catalogued their movements, taking stock. Though her irises glowed with the same vibrancy of Jasper’s own, Yellow Diamond did a far better job at subduing the maelstrom that threatened to rear behind them. She could make herself appear calm, even bored. But in this moment, even Jasper could see the flashing appetite that lived behind them as they approached her.

It was at this point that Jasper remembered very acutely that Yellow Diamond had seen her transgressions with all the vivid detail that Peridot’s recording offered and it took everything she had to keep her shoulders squared and her chin held level.

No weakness, no shame. She would not show either. Only dignity, respect, strength, worthiness—

“I was forced to miss four tribunals this afternoon to meet with you,” Yellow Diamond said, leaning forward with both hands clutched around the armrests of her cathedra. “Four.”

Jasper remained mute. Let the silence sink into her with all the weight of a disapproving mother. It was a lengthy silence indeed.

Finally, Yellow Diamond prompted them with a flick of her wrist. “Well?”

Now was the time. For weeks, she had deliberated on what she could do to save this pearl from slaughter or fates even worse than that. She’d come up with only this one option, with no contingency plans after getting Pearl with a geode; this was all she had. So she took Pearl by the arm, guided her forward (too fast, too harsh—Pearl stumbled), and presented her to Yellow Diamond with the hope that this, this would be enough. “I brought you this pearl,” she said. “All the way from Earth. She is in pristine condition. I bring her as a gift to you.”

An offering. Pearl stared at her own feet, looked exhausted. Jasper really wished she would try to look at least a little more alert and alluring. Did she not understand that she was trying to help her? Did she not realize Jasper was going to give her a place in this world where she would be better off? In an effort to encourage her into acting up, Jasper gave her a nudge. Pearl took a few stumbling steps forward, but then stopped, the same empty expression on her face.

At first, there was no response. Yellow Diamond just leaned forward with her finger rubbing over her lower lip and, for a moment, it looked like she was actually considering the proposition. But the tense silence was shattered as Yellow Diamond threw back her head and laughed. The sound was cutting.

“A gift? This?” Yellow Diamond swept an elegant hand toward Pearl, nails shimmering crystalline. “You bring an old, used pearl in front of me and expect me to consider her a gift? Look at her. Deformed. Her hips are far too narrow to be worth breeding. Can’t imagine how she’s even going to manage to squeeze that rock out of her? And incubating, too. I saw the way you rutted into her, don’t think I didn’t. Disgraceful, Jasper. Utterly disgraceful.”

Jasper felt her jaw stiffen as she attempted to keep the disappointment from her expression. It was difficult not to, though. Little pearl, so very pretty. So very unwanted.

“In a few weeks, she will no longer be incubating,” Jasper tried to explain. “And then you’ll see, she’s actually quite—”

“I don’t have need of a pearl, Jasper,” Yellow Diamond explained, her words far too pronounced to be anything but condescending.

No longer could Jasper hide the flash of frustration on her face. Her fists clenched and she took half a step forward. “But—”

Jasper did not expect to hear Peridot’s voice come from behind her, interrupting loud and clear. “She’s Rose Quartz’s pearl,” Peridot said.

All eyes went to Peridot, surprised that she would speak up at a time like this. Why in the world would she say anything? Jasper knew for sure she had no small amount of distaste for Pearl. There was no reason for her to stick her neck out in the middle of a meeting with Yellow Diamond to advocate.

The sudden mount of attention had Peridot shrinking back a little bit, her voice going softer as she insisted, “Or she was. She was Rose Quartz’s pearl. It’s in my report.”

Yellow Diamond’s head snapped around as if she were seeing Pearl for the first time. “She belonged to Rose Quartz? This was _her_ pearl? _The_ pearl?”

For the first time, Pearl lifted her gaze from the floor.

Yellow Diamond’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as she gazed her up and down. Her finger tapped at her chin. “Now that I think about it, I do remember her pearl being somewhat...odd to look at. And she spoke, too.”

Emboldened by the progress they were making, Jasper nudged at Pearl again. “Speak. Go on, show her how you do it.”

Pearl took yet another staggering step forward, though this time she glanced over her shoulder at Jasper. There was a spark of indignity in her eyes as she looked back at her and Jasper very much hoped she would quench the attitude before she turned back around.

“I can speak,” Pearl said, voice clear and lovely as Jasper remembered it. “I can speak very well, in fact.”

Fascinated, Yellow Diamond leaned forward in her seat, legs uncrossing. The feral coil in her eyes blazed with curiosity.

“I can do everything these other gems can do, in fact. I can fight. I can—”

“Well, that’s enough of that,” Yellow Diamond cut her off with a wave of her hand, bored with Pearl once more. Her gaze was still vivid and searing as she stood from her cathedra and began to descend the steps. She was tall. Graceful. A broad-shouldered silhouette with an imposing rigidity to her movements, so very controlled that it looked like grace. Jasper watched as she prowled closer to Pearl, watched as Pearl’s heels shifted against the marble floor as if she wanted to back away.

With idle fascination, Yellow Diamond took stock of her new item. Took Pearl by the chin and turned her head. Pulled her lips back to take note of her teeth. Rubbed her thumb over the gemstone on her forehead to check for hidden scuffs or cracks, found none. She inspected Pearl’s fingernails. Ran her hands over the cusp of her breasts and grasped them to test the firmness and seemed pleased. Tutted in disappointment over the narrow crest of her hips, though. And then reached in-between Pearl’s legs to feel what she could of her cunt beneath the fabric of her clothes.

Jasper watched it all happen in silence. Every inch of Pearl that Yellow Diamond touched, her eyes followed. She didn’t particularly like what was happening. Something inside of her was running in livid little circles at having to watch someone else touch the pearl that she very much enjoyed. Had it been anyone else’s hands, perhaps Jasper would have lashed out, but this was Yellow Diamond. So Jasper stilled her covetous temper and let it happen.

“Very well. She’s a novelty at best, but I’ll accept your gift, Jasper.”

A wave of relief rushed into Jasper’s chest. She bowed low to her commander. “I am grateful.” And yet, somewhere amid all of that solace was still that astringent thread of jealousy. Jasper tried to ignore it, as this was for the best. Pearl would have a comfortable place here on Homeworld. She was no longer unclaimed.

Yet her eyes still focused on the way Yellow Diamond’s hand stayed on Pearl’s shoulder as she turned toward them once more.

“Peridot?”

“Yes?” Peridot stepped forward, expression glowing with sycophant’s devotion.

“I appreciate the work you have done for me lately and I will be sure to reward you accordingly. I will have your clearance level advanced. But first,” Yellow Diamond said, “I need you to do me a favor.”

“Anything.”

She took Pearl by the arm and prompted her towards Peridot. “Take her to the Nursery. I’m putting you in charge of extracting the geode.” A pointed, sour look at Jasper emphasized whose fault it was that there was a geode in the first place.

Where Peridot had been unequivocally enthusiastic about following orders, she suddenly paused when faced with a gravid pearl. “Er...I’ve never done that before,” she said. “I process Kindergarten gems, not...incubating ones.”

“Then read some old reports,” Yellow Diamond instructed as though it were the simplest of things, her tone clipped. She did not like protest, even in its most benign form. “Learn a new skill and become even more of an asset to me.”

With that, Peridot nodded with determination, her digits closing around Pearl’s arm to take her into her custody. “Right away, my diamond.”

Once again, that pang of displeasure sparked inside Jasper. It was her instinct to take Pearl into her own hands instead, but when she took a step towards them to leave, Yellow Diamond stopped her.

“You stay here, Jasper. I still want to speak to you. Only Peridot is dismissed.”

Jasper stayed begrudgingly. She watched as Peridot led Pearl away, knowing that those low-ranking quartzes were probably going to gawp at Pearl the whole way out. It wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair.

“Jasper.”

Her head snapped back around as Yellow Diamond called upon her attention once more.

“I’m very disappointed in you. But...” she sighed, leaning her cheek upon her hand. “...I am not surprised. It is so very difficult for even the most level-headed of gems to keep their dignity when in the midst of a pearl. See, this is why we don’t use them anymore.” Yellow Diamond leaned forward in her seat as though divulging a secret. “They lure sensible gems into making bad choices. Sex can be so very alluring a prospect, can it not? But not terribly rewarding in the end.”

It was a paradigm Jasper had heard many times before. Hearing it explained again as if it needed explaining was a chastening experience. Yellow Diamond spoke to her like she was fresh out of the ground and did not know the laws that governed them.

She continued. “It serves no purpose. Weakness. Distraction. Needless attachment. Selfish, even. Who do you serve, Jasper? Me or your own desires?”

“I serve you,” Jasper answered easily.

“Oh, and I know.  I have never known you to be the type to be drawn by such base cravings. In fact, I hear that you are more resistant than most to carnal diversions. So am I to assume that this incident was only short lapse in judgment?”

“Yes. Only that.”

“Pity such things happen to such loyal and devout gems such as yourself. But it does happen. Especially where pearls are concerned. So,” she dipped her hand in an elegant gesture, “I will leave you with but a warning. Consider this a lesson learned, Jasper.”

In something that looked very much like reverence, Jasper bowed her head. “Thank you.”

So it was only a slap on the wrist that Jasper received. Somehow, beneath all the discomfort of scrutiny, Jasper was smug. Peridot likely anticipated that Jasper was going to be punished severely for her actions, but it appeared as though she had earned herself nothing more than a scolding. Not unusual, given her high rank. Her decoration granted her at least some immunity to the regulations that governed lesser gems. Unlike the cannon fodder that lined Yellow Diamond’s halls, Jasper had earned her favor and it was finally revealing itself to be of great advantage.

Seemingly satisfied, Yellow Diamond granted Jasper her leave. “You are dismissed.”

 

* * *

 

Pearl’s head rested against the glass of the window, watching as they passed under tunnels and over the heads of resident gems. The glare of the city lights streaked over the windshield to race over the plane of her cheek. Silhouettes of strange and beautiful buildings reflected in the orbit of her eyes.

The drive had been uncomfortably quiet between her and Peridot. Crammed into the small compartment of the pod—was it Peridot’s? Jasper’s? Pearl wasn’t sure—their hips were mere inches from one another and they shared the same space, yet seemingly refused to acknowledge each other for the longest time. Peridot simply kept her eyes on the track and let her fingers work over the holographic controls of the vehicle to steer them towards the looming tower in the distance. Pearl watched the last of her freedom slip away with every street that went by.

The Nursery towered above any of the other buildings in the area. The proffering hands that extended up into the sky to cup moonlight in their palms had once been a symbol of bounty and endowment.  But now as they came closer, Pearl could see that the multitude of windows that stippled the architecture were now dark. Everything was dark. One of the fingers had cracked and was threatening to crumble. There were large chips and rot in the masonry that had never been addressed. The Nursery lay in complete disrepair.

Peridot must have noticed her looking. “This place hasn’t been used in ages. Not since it got shut down. They don’t even train gems to work there anymore; all peridots and sapphires got upgraded to Kindergartens.”

That was not news to Pearl. She remembered when they shut the Nursery down. It had been on Rose’s decree that the place be abandoned. Before the War. That had been almost seven thousand years ago. But she had never thought she would see it looking so decrepit. Nor did she think she would ever be going back to this place.

Peridot must have taken Pearl’s silence as a cue to continue talking. “I never had to work there, of course,” she boasted. “I was made new. I’ve always been a Kindergartener.”

“Great for you,” Pearl murmured. She hardly cared, not when she had to crane her neck back to account for the grand scale of the Nursery as it approached. Once upon a time, it had housed hundreds upon hundreds of pearls. Always bustling with activity, with handlers running tight schedules up and down the many floors to see that geodes were produce with utmost efficiency. Logging data and shipping off entire cargo bins of geodes to be processed at another facility. At the pinnacle of the Nursery’s success, it was one of the Midnight City’s key landmarks. Now it was just another relic. And now Pearl would be the sole inhabitant in the towering corpse of a past she did not wish to relive.

The vehicle came to a stop in the loading bay nested in the side of the building. Peridot switched off the power and the pod went silent. “Okay,” she said, sounding a whole lot less sure of herself than before. “Okay, let’s get you in there. Let’s...go do this.” With another switch of a button, the driver-side door opened and Peridot slipped out.

Pearl was not so graceful. She had to try and shuffle herself over and into the driver’s seat (and landed, for a moment, in the perfect position to turn the pod back on, slam the door shut, and leave Peridot and this terrible planet behind her), burdened with her gravid belly that made it difficult to maneuver. Her long limbs didn’t do anything to help as she had to try and pull her knees up to her chest to slip out, but that did not quite work as easily as she hoped.

“Come on, it can’t be that hard,” Peridot said, tired of watching Pearl struggle. Despite her annoyance, she reached down to give Pearl a hand—or mechanical substitute for a hand—to hold onto so that she could pull herself up and out of the pod to stagger to her feet.

The loading bay was more or less vacant and had been for some time now. Some crates were still stacked haphazardly in a corner. Through the iron bars, the dull, irregular surface of old geodes were visible, stacked at least three high. Likely forgotten about or not worth processing. The bay door was sealed shut and rusted in the cracks. Pearl could see that the heavy quarantine locks were in use, fitted tightly into the grooves of the metal for an added level of security.

“Alright, come on, come on,” Peridot murmured as she held her interface up to the panel at the door. She bobbed impatiently as she waited for the login to process and when it did, she let out a victorious noise. “Thank you, level seven clearance. I am now unstoppable.”

With the groan of welded metal grinding to life, the quarantine locks snapped back and allowed the doors to go free. They parted open like a gaping mouth with nothing but darkness to meet them beyond the threshold.

Suddenly, Peridot did not seem so chipper anymore. “Ooh,” she groaned, staring into the great, silent void beyond. It looked like she would very much like to shove Pearl in past the doorway, close the door behind her, and be on her merry way. Apparently she possessed some thread of courage, however, and managed to take a few tentative steps forward into the dark and began to fumble with her hands.

“Flashlight, flashlight, flashlight,” she muttered as she searched for the right configuration in her mechanical arms. The fingers ratcheted around in circles—laser canon, magnetic beam,  sonic amplifier—until she finally found what she was looking for and a cone of pure white light pierced the darkness. “Ah. There we go.”

Pearl could see the old lobby beyond. Couches, gathering areas. She could still recall the image of how it once looked: where the guards stood lining the walls, where the receptionist sat behind the desk to collect the handlers’ logbooks. The lobby was open and vast, perfect for the occasional festivities that took place here long ago. It was more of a courtyard than anything, an open-aired chamber where the cell blocks that housed hundreds of pearls could be seen all the way up to the top story. The crystalline chandelier still descended from the apex of the Nursery and Pearl could recall vividly the dancing gossamers of light it would cast all about the lobby when it was lit up for those special, covert occasions. And pearls would be led out in batches of twenty or thirty where the high-ranking officers waited and got their choice of pearl or squabbled over them until—

“Okay, where to put you...?” Peridot leaned over an old display panel as it booted up. It took its dear, sweet time before the previous login data was displayed. Last login was dated at many thousands of years ago. The windows shuffled in fast succession as Peridot began to search through the database. “Ugh. Old technology. Not even old. Like, ancient. This is the stuff you were made to interface with.”

“And it still works,” Pearl reminded.

“Barely.” She scrolled through lists of data. Logs of cell numbers and occupants went rushing by with every flick of her finger as she searched, searched... “Aha! Here’s one. Twenty-seventh floor. Row B. Cell 8. Let’s put you there. What’s your number?”

“Excuse me?”

Peridot pointed at the screen. “It wants your number so I can put you in the database.”

Of course. She had been away from Nursery for so long that she had forgotten that such a thing even existed. “O-oh. Um...” Pearl furrowed her brow as she tried to remember that far back. Not even Rose had used her number. But sure enough, it was burned there in the far recesses of her memory, as vivid and permanent as any brand. “Five, four, nine, one, two, two.”

Peridot’s fingers raced to plug the numbers into the codex. Within moments, her file was recalled and Pearl could only watch in mute dismay as every scrap of data Homeworld had collected on her was brought before their eyes. Everything from the date of her creation to a tomography image of her gem, revealing the nucleus of her pearl and the layer of nacre encasing it and all the little intricacies therein as unique as a fingerprint. It revealed Rose still listed as her current owner. And a very long, very comprehensive log of the expansive work Pearl had done here at the Nursery so very long ago...

“Over thirty thousand geodes?” Peridot’s eyes widened at the number Pearl’s file boasted. “And you’re worth _how much?_ That’s more than my entire ship. And my pod. And my apartment.  And probably my whole life. No wonder Yellow Diamond wants to keep you.”

If it was meant to be a compliment, it certainly didn’t feel like it. Pearl felt her cheeks heating up. Once upon a time, her extensive catalogue of rare and impressive geodes had been a matter of pride to her. It had been what made her special, given her something of an identity apart from the rest of the pearls in her cohort. She had been _better_ than them. She liked that she could create beautiful gem after beautiful gem in the basin of her too-narrow hips and received accolades for it, oblivious to the fact that it was not her choice nor her desire to do any of it. But it had been the only thing that made her worth something and so she had clung to it. Had been such a good, obedient pearl that she was made valuable enough to be gifted to Pink Diamond. Such pride, Pearl remembered feeling on the day she was handed over to Rose. Such pride she’d taken in being handed from one owner to the next.

Pearl felt defeated. “Let’s just go,” she said. “Just get it over with.”

“Alright, alright,” Peridot navigated through the console, flipping through menus faster than what Pearl could keep up with. “Let me just turn on the lights or something. Lights, lights, lights...”

The circuit breakers clicked into place and the hum of voltage replaced the silence. Old technology, slow to assimilate to being brought back from slumber, groaned awake. And with it, a collective gasp hissed through the stale air as the lights flickered on one cell block at a time. Like the Nursery itself was breathing for the first time in six thousand years. It sent a shiver down Pearl’s spine because it almost sounded alive. It wasn’t mechanical enough to be the facility; it was like the ocean’s symphony, not at all what Pearl was expecting because it sounded like—

“Ah...” Peridot’s neck was tilted back as she looked up at the cell blocks above. She looked disturbed, her mouth drawn into a thin, tight line. Pearl followed her gaze.

The sudden influx of light and sound brought the residents of the Nursery to life. Rows upon rows of cells wound up into the loft of the tower. They were not empty. Even from where Pearl stood below, she could see the huddled forms and wan faces of pearls trapped behind the iron bars of captivity. She could not even count the number in a single glance. A place gone quiet after years of neglect was suddenly stuttering back to life as the pearls trapped within jolted into consciousness once more. And now that it was beginning to gin up again, Pearl found she rather would have preferred the eerie silence.

Gasps. Whimpers. Screams. Rattling of bars. Piercing, wretched wails coming from somewhere far up on one of the top levels. It was _loud_.

Peridot appeared petrified. “I-I didn’t know they were still keeping them here,” she said. For all the nonchalance she tried to embody, her voice still wavered.

All Pearl could do was wrap her arms around herself as she stared up at it all. Everything she had escaped, everything she had tried to forget laid bare and rushing towards her all at once. Tried not to cry, tried very hard not to cry.

At the control panel, Peridot was swearing. Her fingers shook and her control faltered as she searched for a way to shut the lights off once more. “Okay,” she breathed, unnerved. “Okay, okay, let’s just...turn that off. Off.”

Finally, she managed to override the system booting up the electricity. All at once, the lights went out, plunging the Nursery back into darkness.  For a long, tense moment, Peridot and Pearl stood side-by-side and listened as the screams and hollow echoes died down to a low murmur. Pearls still gasped and whimpered, but the dark warded off the worst of it. It seemed the Nursery was now awake and there was no going back from that, but at least it mellowed in the dusk.

Peridot turned her flashlight back on. “Come on,” she said. “I don’t want to spend another minute in this place. Stars.”

Her footsteps rang metallic on the marble floors as she went in search for the elevator at the other end of the lobby. Pearl trailed behind her, trying not to stray too far from what the beam of the flashlight illuminated. There were plenty of couches and tables to trip over along the way if she did not stay close.

The elevator opened to them readily, already positioned on the ground floor. It was a capsule of glass that allowed them to look out upon the lobby as it took them up into the floors that housed the pearls. Long ago, the ride was a glorious and thrilling one. But tonight, with only Peridot’s flashlight to ward away the darkness, it was a long and uncomfortable one. Every floor that went by, Pearl could only wonder how many other pearls they passed. Twenty? Fifty? Two hundred? How many still remained here trapped and forgotten?

They stopped at the twenty-seventh floor. As soon as the glass doors opened, the sounds of the pearls all around them closed in upon them. Somewhere on a floor above them, there was still at least one pearl wailing in something that sounded like pain. Drones and hums. The punctuated _bang_ of something slamming against a wall repeatedly.

As Peridot swung her flashlight down toward cell block B, illumination immediately fell upon the form of a fragmented pearl. Out in the hall, a single hand without an arm lay helpless, palm-up, fingers flailing. Not far away, the rest of the pearl’s fragmented body (legs and torso, all rather large pieces), struggled to fit through the bars of the cell. Not an unusual sight in the Nursery. Usually happened, Pearl recalled, when a pearl managed to succeed in shattering her own gem.

Peridot’s reaction was a visceral one. She sounded like she was about to heave when she swung her flashlight back around and turned on her heel. “This way,” she said. “We’ll take the other way around. I-I can’t...look at that.”

To cell block A they went instead. A longer walk.

Pearl tried to keep her eyes straight ahead. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see what lay beyond the iron bars where Peridot’s flashlight sometimes wandered. Some cells were empty, but some they passed were not. She could hear the sobs in her ear. Breathy, disconnected noises. And when she let her eyes journey into the cells, she could see what lay beyond. A pearl naked and huddled in the back of her cell, crouched over a fully-formed geode. Another one staring up at the ceiling, still strapped to a gurney. And then a cell without a pearl, but with the sticky, tell-tale remnants of an unformed geode spattered about the cage and oozing out from behind the bars and into the hallway. They had to step around the mess carefully. It looked as though one day, everyone had just dropped everything, left, and never returned.

Banging and droning. It was getting louder the further they walked down the hallway.

The flashlight fell upon the face of a pearl pressed up against the bars, looking back at them with eyes like windows. With a distressed noise, Peridot quickly turned the beam away and walked faster.

And the banging and droning grew even louder.

“Come on, come on,” Peridot rushed onwards, her pace closer to a jog now. Every little noise made her flinch.

It was when they made the turn into cell block B that Pearl finally saw what was making the racket. A pearl haphazardly bound with her hands behind her back knelt at the front of her cell. She buckled, slammed her head into the wall, only to reel back slowly and do it all over again. And then again. Wasn’t much left to her face, really. It was bruised and her forehead dented in. Pearl hurried past without daring to look much closer, but the dense sound of that pearl’s head hitting the wall time after time haunted her as they continued down the corridor.

The wailing from a few floors up started again.

“Peridot,” Pearl whispered. “Don’t make me stay here.”

“This is where Yellow Diamond told me to take you,” she said, stubborn as ever despite the apprehension written all over her. “I have to—augh, ew.” She side-stepped a geode that had rolled out of one of the cells and laid inert in the middle of the corridor.

They passed cell 11. Then cell 10. Finally cell 9.

“Please?” Pearl’s voice was small.

The door to cell 8 opened with the sound of rusted iron grating against stone. Peridot pushed it open with one hand and Pearl took a step back as she stared into the room beyond. It was like every other cell. Small, barely enough room to pace. There was a bench on the far corner where she could curl up and stare out the bars of the window and look upon the Midnight City. On one wall was a fold-out gurney Pearl knew well, a tool used for all geode implantations and extractions. It was all beginning to come back to her. Everything. And she couldn’t stand the thought of coming back. The days spent vacant inside her own body. Time passing not in hours, but in geodes. Geode after geode. And more geodes. Unspeaking, unacknowledged, unnamed.

“Please don’t make me go.”

Peridot made a frustrated noise. “You _have_ to.” She jerked her hand in a gesture for Pearl to move herself into the open cell.

Compliance. She was still alive, wasn’t she? Compliance got her this far...

Stiffly, Pearl walked into the cell. Tried to keep her chin held high as she did it because, perhaps if she managed to do this without crying, she could still pretend like this was her choice, this was her decision. She did it for Steven and Garnet and Amethyst. This was all for them.

The iron door closed behind her and she heard Peridot interface with the lock. It was in that moment that Pearl had to wonder if she would ever see the day where she walked out of the Nursery ever again. She was luckier than the rest of these pearls trapped here in that she had gotten to walk out of the Nursery once before. Had a glorious time of it. Saw all the stars in the galaxy and more. Fell in love a few times over. She’d made the best of her time outside of this place. But in the long run, she was just another one of these pearls, wasn’t she? In a few thousand years, perhaps she would be just as crippled and demented as the rest of them. Or, if she was brave enough, maybe she would have the courage to crush her gemstone before she got that far.

The lock finally found its rusty berth in the door of the cell. “I’ll be back to get that geode out,” Peridot murmured with something that sounded like reassurance. A strange thing, coming from her. “Couple weeks.”

“Please don’t leave me,” she begged, though she knew it would do no good. Peridot was afraid here and she had never been particularly kind to Pearl.

Still, it took several moments of hesitation before Peridot finally turned to leave. Her footsteps carried down the corridor as she made her way back to the elevator back the way they’d come, avoiding the fragmented pearl that still floundered in the hallway. As soon as Pearl heard the elevator doors close once more, she knew she was truly alone. For the first time since she’d given herself as a prisoner, Pearl was alone. She crumpled to the bench by the window and grasped at the bars as she looked out upon the city below.

The gravity of everything that had happened, everything that she had gone through since she first surrendered herself to Homeworld once more finally sank in. Truly, really. Any glamor that came with the idea of martyrdom had long since worn off. Probably wore off the first time she’d been forced to come with nothing but claws inside her, really, if she was being honest. But only now was she able to see where it brought her.

Pearl wished she was home. She wished she was home where it was warm and safe. Where Garnet was there to watch over them all and Amethyst was there to make her laugh. She wished she could hear Steven talking excitedly about a new toy or video game as she stood elbow-deep in dish water and looked out upon the beach she had come to love and find comfort in. At this moment, she would give anything to be back there. And for a single, selfish instant, she wished she hadn’t given herself up as a prisoner. Maybe they would have taken Amethyst or Garnet instead, or maybe they would have killed them all, but at least Pearl wouldn’t have ended up here, alone in a cell surrounded by the shrieking remnants of her own kind.

Selfish thoughts like those didn’t make Pearl proud.

Tears blurred her vision. She tried to deny them by chasing them away with the heel of her hand, but they kept coming back. They made the lights of the city below splotchy and made the colors swill into each other. And finally, after several attempts to wipe away the tears, Pearl failed to keep up. She could only sit with her hands pressed to her eyes in an attempt to stem the flow, but it didn’t do much good.

Her final mistake was to think about how much she missed the warmth of caring arms and hands pressing around her shoulders whenever she was upset. Because for so long, she was so used to having someone there to comfort her even in the worst of times. And now there was no one.

For the first time, Pearl let herself cry without restraint. No being brave. No heroics. Nothing to prove to her captors. She cried as the weight of her reality settled with the force of a galaxy colliding down upon her.

Above and below, one thousand pearls cried with her.


	8. Chapter 8

The shuttle was late.

Jasper sat on a bench that was too small for her frame as she waited. Her knees were pulled up to her chest and she sat in an awkward hunch. She was grateful that she was the only one lingering in the terminal. A few gems walked by as she waited, but they all had their own shuttles to catch and paid her no mind.

By now, Pearl was likely settled into the Nursery. Jasper should have felt a sense of accomplishment at getting that pearl back to Homeworld in one piece and giving her a life here—owned by Yellow Diamond, no less, which was an honor in and of itself—but somehow Jasper found it difficult to feel anything but annoyed and uneasy. Like something wasn’t quite right. Like somewhere along the line, she had made a mistake. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“What are you still doing here?”

Jasper lifted her head just in time to see Peridot walking towards her.

Great. Not exactly the first gem she wanted to see right now.

“Waiting for the shuttle,” Jasper said, turning away. “It’s late.”

“You’re going back to the ship?” Peridot cocked her head and, despite Jasper’s bristled posture, came to sit beside her on the bench.

“Yeah. Gotta pick up some things.”

“I’m going back too,” she said. “Picking up Lapis.”

Jasper rumbled acknowledgement and they sat there side by side for a long moment. The rush of a shuttle arriving several tracks away filled the terminal. Peridot fiddled with a smudge on the metal plating of her forearm.

“So...” Peridot said after a pause. “How late is the shuttle?”

“Half hour.”

“Ah.” She slumped. But then something seemed to occur to her. “Well, I’ll just call it! I have level seven clearance now and I’ll just make it bypass the other routes and pick us up now.” So excited by her idea, Peridot didn’t waste any time bringing up her screen and plucking away at the interface.

“You can do that?” Though Jasper still (and had always) had more rank than Peridot, she concerned herself more with strategy and action during missions. Not so much the technology behind it all—that was why she had a peridot to assist her in the first place. Jasper never had the patience to sit with her nose pressed up to a screen, tinkering with dizzying amounts of data to access the minutia of life. She often belittled Peridot for doing so. However, if Peridot had the power to make the damned shuttle come faster, then Jasper would reconsider all those times she derided her for spending her life with her face glued to a console. Finally making herself useful.

“That shuttle is all the way in Sector 16 right now,” Peridot said, pointing at a cluster of data as if it should make any sense to Jasper. “So far away. Ugh. Hmm. But no one’s on this one over here. So what if I...?”

When Jasper peered over Peridot’s shoulder, she could see lines of numbers cascading down beneath the pirouettes and jetés of Peridot’s fingers.

Peridot was quick to be annoyed. She swatted her free hand at Japer’s face. “You’re breathing on my neck.”

With a grunt of agitation, Jasper pulled back and gave her more space. Thought about offering Peridot an acidic retort of her own, but never got the chance.

“There!” Peridot looked very pleased with herself. “I rerouted the B-35 shuttle to our track. No one was on it anyway.” With that, her screen collapsed once more. She folded her hands in her lap and looked positively brimming as she stared down the track as if waiting for the shuttle to show up any moment. A smile curled on her lips.

Another shuttle rushed down a track somewhere behind them.

“So. How did it go with Pearl?” Jasper ventured to ask. Her hands fidgeted on her knees. “The pearl, I mean.”

Something in Peridot’s posture shifted toward the apprehensive. “Erm. Went fine. She’s in the Nursery like Yellow Diamond wanted. I’ll go back and extract the geode in a couple weeks. Should be a good one, judging by her record. Probably an olivine or hematite if we’re lucky.”

Jasper grunted, deep in thought. For having so much vitriol towards Pearl not too long ago, Peridot was certainly being compliant lately when it came to matters concerning her. Without Peridot speaking up on Pearl’s behalf in the meeting with Yellow Diamond, Pearl may not have been accepted by her at all and all of Jasper’s work would have been for naught. It was a strange, but not unwelcome change. It was like Peridot was on her side again. Perhaps the punishment Jasper had imposed upon her had actually done something to enforce better behavior from her. Peridot really hadn’t been a problem since Jasper let her out from beneath that mattress.

Maybe Peridot was just happy that Pearl was gone. Jealous, jealous little thing.

A light appeared at the end of the track and Peridot hopped to her feet. “It’s here.”

Sure enough, the vacuum suck of wind rushed into the terminal with the polished, pristine transport vessel. It was shaped like a capsule, encompassing the track entirely. A dark blue stripe ran down the length of it, revealing that this shuttle was in the entirely wrong sector thanks to Peridot’s newfound authority. The door slid open with a quiet, hydraulic invitation.

Peridot tromped ahead while Jasper had to duck just to get through the doorway. The door closed behind her. “But does it sound like Yellow Diamond is going to leave her there?” Jasper asked.

There was a noncommittal shrug from Peridot as the shuttle began to move. The lights dimmed as they moved down the track away from the bright terminal and into a tunnel.

Jasper was not about to give up so easily. “Is she going to bring Pearl into her court once she’s done incubating?”

“Ugh. Why do you care so much?”

“You’re jealous. Why are you so jealous?”

“Because!” Peridot slammed her foot down. “You and I have a good thing going. And then she comes in and you fuck her like—”

“So that’s what it is. You’re mad because of the way I fucked her.”

“ _Yes!_ ” She yelled, the cords in her neck straining. “I am. Because I’ve wanted you to fuck me like that since I was assigned to you. They told me in training that my quartz was going to take me, claim me hard. Like it was a bad thing. But I wanted it. I was so excited to be assigned to you for our off-world missions. Because look at you. Look at you! You’re perfect. A brute in every way. And I waited for you to fuck me like they said you would. I waited patiently. I did everything you asked of me. Mission after mission. ‘ _Yes, Jasper. Thank you, Jasper. Whatever you say, Jasper_.’ And then what do you go and do? You fuck that Pearl before you ever even so much as let me touch you.”

The shrill pitch of Peridot’s declamation hung in the air over both of them, lingering there with nothing but the low drone of the shuttle’s engine to keep it company. Jasper could only stare at Peridot with wide eyes, unsure of exactly how to react to such an outburst.

As if exhausted, Peridot slumped back into her seat, arms crossed and body turned away. She looked as though she wished she had taken a separate shuttle. Or, at the very least, she looked as though she wished Jasper was not sitting right across from her.

“That’s all?” Jasper said.

“Yes,” Peridot snapped, refusing to look over at her.

“You just wanted me to fuck you like I fucked her?”

“ _Yes, you clod!_ ”

The request did not seem so impossible. And it wasn’t as though Jasper had never _thought_ about doing it. But there was control and dignity to maintain. She had appearances and restraint and rank and—

—and fuck it. If her meeting with Yellow Diamond today taught Jasper anything, it was that she could get away with so much more before she got into any real trouble. It taught her that Peridot was infuriating, but she came through in the end.  And so, against her better judgement, she reached out across the aisle and wrapped her hand around Peridot’s throat, closing the space between them.  
Peridot sucked in a surprised breath, reached up to wrap her cold digits around Jasper’s fist on reflex.

“You want me to fuck you like I fucked her?”

Beneath Jasper’s gaze, Peridot seemed to melt. “Stars, yes.”

“You really want me to?”

Peridot pushed herself closer to Jasper, greedy for more of that hand around her throat. She urged Jasper to press harder. “I really, really want you to,” she said, her eyes aglow with anticipation like little green comets in her skull, gleaming with ozone lit aflame.

Jasper pushed back, pinning Peridot to the wall behind her. She didn’t resist. Should have learned by now not to trust Jasper. Not with this, not with anything. But she was lucky that, this time, Jasper had no designs for punishment, only a stirring resolve to repeat that impressive loss of control she had experienced with Pearl. If she could recreate it, if she could feel that again...perhaps she would stop thinking about that pretty little gem so much.

“Hit me,” Peridot crooned.

“Where?”

“My face.”

Jasper complied immediately, bringing the back of her right hand across Peridot’s cheek. Low enough to avoid her gem, gentle enough not to take her head off in a single swipe, but enough to knock the visor right off and turn her cheek a vibrant green. The visor clattered to the ground.

Already, Peridot’s eyes were glassy, her lips flushed. A scattered giggle prickled at the back of her throat, slurred in something that looked very much like ecstasy.

“You want it again?”

She stroked Jasper’s forearm with her fingers. “Yes. Other side. Make it even.”

They’d played this game before. Jasper indulging in Peridot’s odd proclivities, sating some need of hers to endure such things. She couldn’t understand it, but she agreed to play along, if only because Peridot moaned with such conviction. Jasper hit her again. The sounds of skin colliding filled the shuttle, sharp and stinging.

“Oh, stars, Jasper...” Peridot slumped into her seat a little more, Jasper’s grip the only thing keeping her from slipping onto the floor. “Are you really going to do it? Don’t say you are and then change your—”

Jasper tightened her fist, cutting off Peridot’s words. She brought her face close, drinking in the vibrating energy. Such an insatiable gem, Peridot was. Jasper had to wonder if she had any limits at all. “I’m going to fuck you,” she assured. “So you’re going to sit up straight. You’re going to open your mouth. And you’re going to do what I say.”

With a whimper of assent, Peridot was already squirming in her seat, trying to sit upright again like she’d been told. Obedient. A good listener. Clearly trying to earn her reward.

When Jasper let go of her throat and straightened back up to look down at her quarry, she could see nothing but devotion there. The same devotion she saw whenever Peridot looked upon Yellow Diamond. It made her feel powerful, it made her feel revered. She hiked her leg up to rest her foot on the seat next to Peridot’s hip, reached up to pull at the collar of her uniform and—

“Wait!”

Jasper paused, her brows furrowing.

Peridot looked very small, sitting there beneath the looming bulk of Jasper’s thigh. She poked her fingers together, nervous. “We, uh, there are cameras here.” She glanced toward the front of the shuttle.

At the front of the car a small, glassy bulb was affixed to the wall above the window. Surely they were being watched. Or, at the very least, their actions were being recorded.

With a hiss, Jasper recoiled, unwilling to let any more reckless behavior find its way back to Yellow Diamond in the form of incriminating videos.  

“No, no, no!” Peridot put her hands out to stop Jasper’s retreat. “Wait, I’ll just—I have level seven clearance now, I’ll shut it off.”

“You with your damned level seven clearance...”

“Really. I will. Here.” Peridot had to fumble this time to make her screen appear, already so rattled. Her fingers shook and Jasper could tell she was having a hard time controlling them. All over a little rough handling and a whispered promise... And then finally her fingers arranged themselves properly, nearly hitting herself in the face in the process when the hologram screen popped open. “Watch, I can deactivate it. So easy. A-and that way no one will find out!”

A growl was the only answer Jasper deigned to give her, irritated at having to put their game on hold. She hadn’t truly realized the extent of the heat welling inside her until she was forced to step away from the moment, watching benignly as Peridot did what she did best. Manipulating data. Tongue poking out of the side of her mouth as she concentrated, her fingers flying fast, missing their mark several times with her haste.

She must have been feeling the heat, too. Cloying and sweet. Demanding.

“There, I turned it off,” Peridot chimed. Her eyes were wide and ardent upon Jasper’s face, already searching for approval. For a _demonstration_ of approval.

Jasper would give her that, then, if only because it felt nice to close her hand around Peridot’s jaw, cupping her face in the palm of her hand. Watched as her claws dug pinpricks into the flesh of her cheeks, forcing her lips to pout. “No one can find out,” she pressed. “Not a trace of what we’re about to do gets out.”

Peridot could barely speak around the claws framing her jaw. “I promise.”

In all reality, this was probably the safest place in all of Homeworld to commit such acts: zipping down a track at high speeds with no one else around on a shuttle that was on the wrong route to begin with. No one to hear them, no one to see them and yet, below them, gems went on with their lives. Thousands could turn their faces up and see their shuttle careening through the Midnight City at any given moment.

Peridot’s fingers found their way to Jasper’s thighs to trace up the lines of muscle there. Like spiders they climbed, moving in a flowing succession that sent a spike of electricity up Jasper’s spine which intensified the higher they crept. They seemed to be searching.

Before they could reach their objective, Jasper grabbed a fistful of Peridot’s hair and pulled her head back, disrupting the intrepid progress of her fingers.

Her reaction was purely visceral. “ _Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me_...” she chanted, the sounds vibrating at the back of her throat. Like a prayer. A wish. Her eyes were closed, throat bared. Submitting to Jasper her deepest desires and trusting her to make them reality.

It only took a moment for Jasper to dissipate her clothing. It was fast, impulsive. It felt right.

When Peridot felt the heat of Jasper’s bare cunt against her lips, her eyes flew open in surprise. A range of emotions flickered through her—shock, confusion, delight, and finally low, molten desire that settled into her gaze as her tongue darted out in welcome.

At the touch of another, Jasper’s breath hitched. So long, she had spent confining her lusts. Convinced she was better for it, stronger, more restrained than all the others. Yellow Diamond _liked_ that she endured and, for a while, that had been enough. The approval of her diamond and the reverence of her fellow quartz had been enough.

But then that pearl...

_That pearl with the lithe little hips, elegant nose, and plump, blue-tinted labia. Nipples that bloomed beneath Jasper’s fingers. Soft and firm. Tiny breasts. Jasper had wanted to kiss them, one kiss for each, taste the salt nestled in the junction of her collarbones_.

Jasper looked down and saw green eyes instead of blue.

Ah, that’s right. It was Peridot’s face she looked into now, half of it obscured by the generous plume of white hair that graced the apex of her cunt, like a bow atop a gift. For all the aggravating racket Peridot could make when she put her mind to it, Jasper couldn’t help but marvel over how truly small her mouth was like this. Such big complaints out of such a petite gem. The way her tongue lapped against the hood of her clit to find the bud beneath was almost endearing.

“Suck,” Jasper commanded.

Peridot obeyed. Her lips pressed firmly, her cheeks hollowed. A look of determination overcame her in a way Jasper had only seen a few times before. Once when another peridot had challenged her right to take an off-world mission to System 58. And once more when Lapis muttered some unsavory things about Yellow Diamond toward the beginning of their most recent mission. It was the look of Peridot abandoning logic and reason in lieu of results.

Jasper knew what she wanted. Knew why her lips were so fervent and why the breath rushed out of her nose with force on every exhale. What she desired, of course, was to cast the same fire over Jasper that had incited her to claim Pearl for herself. She wanted to make her lose control.

“Use your fingers. Go on.”

Slender, cool digits skittered up the inside of Jasper’s thighs faster than she could follow, as if Peridot had been waiting on her request like a slavering hound. And, indeed, there was saliva dripping down Peridot’s chin like juice gushing from a particularly ripe peach as she nudged her face into the heat of Jasper’s cunt. Her fingers shivered, clumsy. The extra mental capacity it took for her to control them properly seemed to be beyond her at the moment and she was having trouble getting them inside, prodding at all the wrong places.

Jasper tried not to be impatient, but couldn’t help the strain in her tone when she said, “This shuttle ride is only so long...”

The sad truth of it made Peridot whimper. A finger finally slipped in, angling forward. Jasper felt it thud against the deep inner lengths of her clit, sending a jolt right through her and down to the very tip where Peridot’s lips still pressed. She pushed again, trying to draw Jasper out in the only way she knew how. Tease her, stroke her, coax her from within. And Jasper let her, the breaths falling taught and clipped from her chest as she watched. Her belly rolled as the muscles beneath rippled in succession, almost serpentine in how her body moved.

_She thought about Pearl’s thighs and how they quivered when they opened to her. The way her throat bobbed when she trilled her pleasure. She thought about Pearl’s lips, opened in a gasp—no—wrapped tightly around something. Wrapped tightly around Jasper’s—_

With a groan, Jasper’s muscles tightened, everting her cock with enough force to smear a line of slick up Peridot’s cheek where she didn’t retreat fast enough.

Peridot didn’t seem to mind. For coming face-to-face with Jasper’s cock so abruptly, her wide-eyed gaze appeared reverent.

_—lips wrapped tightly around her—_

“It’s bigger up close,” Peridot whispered.

“Open.”

Thin lips parted, flashing Jasper the blue-tinted interior of Peridot’s mouth. Her lashing little tongue twitched as if beckoning her forward. A welcoming sight, indeed. So welcoming that Jasper couldn’t help but take herself in her one fist, take a lock of Peridot’s hair in the other, and guide her cock down into that waiting mouth. She felt warm lips first, stretching taut around the head. Then a tongue lapping at the tip. Peridot’s jaw strained to fit more, to accept another inch. It looked like she was eager to take it at least to the first ridge, but she couldn’t even manage that. Jasper pressed forward a little more firmly, holding Peridot’s head in place by her hair, but only gained herself the press of teeth where there was no more room to accommodate the girth.

It was nice to look down and see Peridot greeting a cock too big for her, but a fruitless venture for the both of them. Jasper growled something deep in her throat as she pulled away. “Too small.”

A line of saliva dripped down Peridot’s chin. She huffed. “Then put it in me.”

Somehow that enticement all but knocked the breath out of Jasper. She didn’t know why at first. Why did it feel as though her spine was tingling with electricity until her fingers twitched? She was puzzled until she realized that virtually no one had ever given her such an invitation before. No one had ever wanted her to—

“Please,” Peridot wheedled as if Jasper needed even more convincing. “Put it in me.”

That was all the prompting Jasper needed. She lashed out, grabbed Peridot by her arm, and hauled her out of her seat with enough force to make her lose her balance. If she hadn’t been supported by the arm, she would have simply fallen on her face.

“Up against the wall,” Jasper rasped. “Bend over. Now.”

Peridot shuddered and reached out to brace herself against the window of the shuttle. It was a dizzying view—a window from floor to ceiling that looked down upon the Midnight City as it rushed by them in all its neon glory. Peridot wobbled as she used it for support as best she could. For all the world, it looked as though she braced herself against thin air, nothing there for support as Jasper loomed behind her.

“Bend.” Jasper pressed a large hand on Peridot’s back, forcing her to double over further. With a grunt, Peridot complied, her ass raised for the taking. An offering. One that Jasper was all-too-willing to take. She scoured the curve and dip of her body, petite but full in all the right places. Breasts, hips, thighs. The fabric of her uniform fit over all those generous parts of her. Some might call it extraneous—a peridot like her did not need lovely, rounded hips or a bust to do their work. And yet Jasper was beginning to appreciate such endowments on her peridot as she reached down and attacked the inner seam of the uniform that fit betwixt her legs. She hooked it with a claw and pulled it aside, exposing the more delicate and vulnerable fabric beneath. The leggings beneath the uniform were so thin that Jasper could see the outline of her cunt. She was surprised to see that there was not yet dampness growing there. Usually when Peridot oozed her arousal, she was generous...

Frustrated that there was no telltale sign of lust, Jasper dug her fingers into the flimsy leggings and let her claws do what they did best: shred. There was barely any resistance from either the fabric or Peridot as she cleaved a formidable hole to all but expose her quim for Jasper’s scrutiny. Still no sign of slick.

It was almost a personal offense. Why wasn’t she enjoying this, why wasn’t she—?

Ah. All it took was two of Jasper’s fingers spreading the lush bloom of her cunt apart to reveal the copious, sappy evidence glazing the inner folds and entrance with a slick that was almost iridescent in its purity. It was like popping open the ripe bud of a fruit—the nectar trickled down Jasper’s fingers unhindered. This was what Jasper sought after.

Peridot shivered under her touch, then clenched in anticipation with enough force to send another rush of slick over Jasper’s fingers. “Stars, I hope you fit...”

“We’ll make it fit.” Jasper grasped her cock in her hand, the back of Peridot’s neck with the other, and brought their bodies together.

It was enough to force Peridot to the tips of her toes, her fingers scrabbling against the glass as she fought for purchase. A guttural wail, the wet, obscene sound of Jasper entering her where evidence of Peridot’s arousal pooled with gluttonous abandon. And then Jasper became the spear, Peridot the sheath. A pair.

Peridot slammed her hand against the glass in rapid succession in something that looked like surrender, her lower lip pulled between her teeth. For a moment, Jasper considered pulling out in the event that it was too much, but then Peridot was rolling her hips and pushing back against her with a lewd grace that Jasper had never before seen from her. Gone were the awkward and ungainly fumbles of a neophyte with no rank and no skill beyond the numbers and symbols on a screen. The nasal shrill of her voice was unchanged as her howls filled up every inch of space in their shuttle, and yet for the first time, Jasper found they didn’t aggravate her at all. She wanted to wring more out of her, hear her calling for more, more...

Jasper could see the reflection of Peridot’s face in the glass. Her eyes closed, her mouth open in a wide, continuous gasp as she was fucked and filled. She responded to the hand on the back of her neck by pushing back against it, daring Jasper to hold her even harder.

And then Jasper thrust up and could go no further. Peridot yelped, brought once again to her toes by the force of it. They had hit an end, a point where Jasper had plumbed her depths and there was no deeper left to sink.

She thrust up one more time to be sure, only to meet the same end and wrench a higher, more irritated yelp from Peridot.

Down between them, at least a good third of her cock still remained unsheathed. Wasn’t even wet. When she had been with that pearl, their bodies had joined together like lock and key, like they were made to be together. But then again, pearls were made to be fucked. Peridots were not.

“It won’t fit,” Jasper hissed.

Impatient, Peridot twisted around, trying to get a good look at what was happening. When she caught sight of the generous amount that was not yet inside her, she groaned. “Jasper...”

“You’re too small,” she reiterated, growing exasperated.

There was some shuffling of hands and feet and halfhearted attempts from Peridot to force herself down, but in the end, there was simply no more room.

Finally, it seemed as though Peridot was fed up with the whole thing. A bark of exasperation left her throat as she twisted around one more time and reached behind her. Her suspended fingers bypassed Jasper’s hands easily. One of her digits hooked onto the frayed inner seam of her tights and _pulled_. Threads buckled and submitted, extending the already generous run further up until it met the crest of her spine. “Here,” she said. “Fuck me here.”

It took Jasper a moment of staring to comprehend exactly what she meant. Her eyes grazed up the line of pale flesh the torn fabric revealed, meandered up the length of the cleft marked by the stretch of her cunt around the girth of Jasper’s cock, the flushed tint and furl of her ass, and finally the tapered ridges of her vertebrae. When she finally realized exactly what Peridot meant, she almost laughed. “You’re cracked. I’m not going to fit in your ass.” It was almost offensive that Peridot would even suggest such a thing at a time like this. It felt like a jest.

Peridot stood firm. “It will.”

“If I don’t fit in your cunt, I’m not going to fit in your ass.”

That seemed to be enough to snap something in Peridot. When she turned back around, Jasper could see the glint of that same crazed determination in her eyes. The one that could move mountains. “This shuttle ride is only so long and if we don’t finish by the time we get to the ship bay, by diamonds, Jasper...”

Five cold, metal digits wrapped around the base of Jasper’s cock. Peridot broke their seal with a wet suction sound. Her quim was gleaming with slick, succulent folds spread like an exotic, indigo flower. Jasper’s length was positively dripping with the fluids she had earned from her relatively brief expedition inside and when the cool chill of the outside air hit, she wanted nothing more than to bury herself back inside that lovely-looking cunt. Small as it may have been, it was at least warm and generous. It had embraced her, welcomed her. Peridot’s ass, however, had her skeptical. “It’s not going to fit. You’re just going to be sore.”

“Shut up.”

In the next moment, Peridot was pressing Jasper against her ass. At first, it seemed as tight and as ungiving as she expected. A useless attempt. Jasper was ready to take back control and plunge herself into Peridot’s cunt again to at least try and make something of their time on the shuttle. But then, with a fraction more coaxing from Peridot’s relentless fingers, she finally opened. Jasper hissed on reflex as she was introduced to an intensity and warmth she had never known before. “Fuck,” she said. “You’re cracked, Peridot, if you think this is going to—”

“ _Just do it_ ,” she shrilled, her back arching like a cat in heat. “ _Do it, do it, do it._ ”

The moment Jasper felt Peridot’s fingers rake over her hip—a motion that would have left claw-marks, had she possessed fingernails—she threw caution to the wind and drove forward. Her hips stuttered back to life, rocking their bodies to an unspoken tempo. Like the tide rushing in on the shore, the waves lapping further and further up the beach; this was how she took Peridot. Slow at first, expecting there to be some resistance, some protest once Peridot came back to her senses and realized that this was not nearly as pleasurable as she first expected...and yet Peridot was not complaining in the slightest. Her forehead was pressed against the glass, her fingers clenching and unclenching as she droned on in what sounded very much like bliss.

“You like that?” Jasper hummed in her ear.

A vague, guttural noise of assent was all she received in answer, and yet she could see in the way that Peridot bowed and rolled her hips that this, _this_ was the manifestation of pleasure for her. Not her cunt, but _this_. Was it the intensity? The spark of pain? The burning that accompanied the stretch as Jasper pushed further? Jasper didn’t know if she would ever understand what made Peridot tick.

Most surprising of all was looking down to realize she had almost hilted herself inside and this bottomless, insatiable little peridot was still moaning for more.

Finally, Jasper’s hips met the curve of Peridot’s ass and could go no further. She looked positively stuffed. Her limbs heavy and trembling, barely able to hold up the weight of her metallic extensions any longer, and her belly was slightly rounded where the whole of Jasper’s length breached her through and through. She should have been too diminutive to take such a thing inside her. _Should_ have been. The thought made Jasper drive forward on impulse, pinning Peridot against the glass of the window. Her mechanical joints whirred as she scrabbled in protest to being lifted up off the ground, her legs held akimbo across the thick span of Jasper’s thighs.

“See them all down there?” she asked, taking a fistful of Peridot’s hair and turning her head down to gaze upon the Midnight City that rushed by below. “See those other gems?”

“Yeah,” Peridot said, her breath fogging the window.

“Think they’d like looking up to see you like this?”

Jasper’s hips jerked only once, but it was enough to knock the breath out of Peridot for a lovely moment. And yet it was hardly enough to douse the fire in her. She only wheezed out a laugh and met Jasper’s eyes in the window’s reflection. “I think they’d be jealous.”

A low rumble of Jasper’s own laughter vibrated through them both. She took Peridot’s hips in her hands, held her steady, and began to fuck her slow. Savored the way that inviting, tenacious entrance seemed not to want to let her go as she drew back. Treasured the way Peridot’s knees jerked when she hilted herself fully once more. The way the ridges on the underside of her cock caressed Peridot from the inside, the way Peridot’s breath hitched when those same ridges pushed and pulled at the rim on the outside.

And then Peridot tilted her head back, baring her throat when she begged, “Harder.”

Jasper was past the point of disbelief. She readjusted her grip on Peridot’s hip and waist and obeyed, but not without reminding, “You’re going to be sore.”

“I know,” she sighed as if in a dream. “Make me sore.”

Skin met skin with a sound like thunder. It was electric between them, bolts of pleasure rushing from Jasper to Peridot, from Peridot to Jasper, then back again. Jasper pushed, Peridot gave. Even bucked back so her hips met Jasper’s every thrust. They collided with enough force to shake the window pane—it rattled in its frame.

“ _Fuck me, fuck me_ ,” Peridot chanted. Her fingers were amorous on Jasper’s hip, always pulling her closer, or raking at her flesh to demand more, more. Her insatiability was Jasper’s vigor. Her breaths came fast, always laced with an obscenity or moan. And then her pitch began to spiral high, fervent and urgent. Her cries only wavered when Jasper thrust up into her, forcing the air from her lungs. Jasper had seen Peridot come enough times to know what was about to happen.

She choked on her own scream and then there was silence. Peridot went stiff in Jasper’s arms, head thrown back and thighs twitching. And from the inside, Jasper could feel her come, clenching over and over at a speed she couldn’t keep up with. The drip of warm fluid on her thigh drew Jasper’s attention to the short, involuntary pulses of liquid that accompanied Peridot’s release. It streaked down the window in crystalline clear rivulets, catching all the vivid colors of the Midnight City. What didn’t spatter the window dripped to the floor between Jasper’s feet. Those short little bursts grew shorter yet until Peridot’s body softened entirely. Spent. She slumped against Jasper and drew a great, shuddering breath.

There were many things Jasper wanted to say to her. Ask her if she had enjoyed herself, chuckle over the mess she’d made. Wanted to thumb her clit to watch her squirm in her oversensitive state. Or maybe just purr praise in her ear for being such a damn good fuck. Better than anticipated, anyway.

“Why’d you stop?” Peridot’s reedy voice cut through Jasper’s thoughts.

“You came,” she said.

“Yeah. We’re only in Sector Ten.” Peridot rolled her head back to meet Jasper’s eyes. They were vibrant without her visor to shield their color. “Make me do it again.”

Jasper did not need further invitation. She cradled Peridot with a hand on her stomach, the other around her throat. Like that, she held her, such a small thing in size. She fit in her hands and melted to her touch that the moment Jasper could feel her own cock move behind the flesh and skin of Peridot’s abdomen, she felt like she was holding nothing more than a toy. An object. Peridot couldn’t have resisted even if she wanted to (and she surely did not want to, not in the least). So malleable. So willing to surrender as if it was some great honor.

That’s what they taught them though, wasn’t it? All the little peridots and opals and tourmalines as they went through their training regiment were taught the same. To be claimed by a quartz was an eventuality. It was part of working with them and for them. Beasts, the lot of them. Slavish to their hunger and unpredictable at even the best of times.

Jasper couldn’t refute that. For here she was, crouched over Peridot as if crouched over prey, rutting for her own pleasure and to relieve the pressure building inside of her. A heaviness in her abdomen that grew; she was a slave to her desires. No going back at this point.  

Peridot screamed obscenities to the ceiling. Her metal limbs scraped against the glass hard enough to scuff as Jasper reamed up and into her, losing herself in the moment. It sounded painful, and yet Peridot managed to grab a lock of long, white hair and pull Jasper closer, closer. Close enough to bury her face in the crook of Peridot’s shoulders. Close enough to feel the vibration of her cries where her lips skimmed her throat. She tasted sweat and dust. Mechanical lubricant.

When Jasper thrust in one last time, she pressed Peridot between the glass and her body so tightly that she could hear the breath rush out of her all at once in a desperate little wheeze.

Her body throbbed. Slower than Peridot’s had, but with enough force to pump cum from where it had welled inside her. Sluggish, but copious. A pulse like a heartbeat thrummed through her flanks and up into Peridot’s body.

“Oh, fuck,” Peridot’s voice was nothing more than a squeak, she was trapped so tightly. She must have felt the rush of hot fluid into her. Must have realized what was about to happen.

“T-this was what you wanted,” Jasper reminded her, words heavy on her tongue. “Just like I fucked her.”

Peridot’s thighs were twitching. Minutely at first and then more violently. She closed her eyes tight and pitched forward far enough for her gem to clink against the glass. “Yes,” she gasped. “L-like you...you fucked...” Peridot made a sound like she was drowning and Jasper could only surmise she’d come again to nothing more than the sensation of being filled. The collapse of her body that followed only confirmed Jasper’s suspicions. And yet Jasper could do nothing to help her—she was far too consumed in her own encompassing release.

The world sank below the tide all around them. Like the crystalline imprint of stars dipped below the mountains on the horizon, Jasper felt herself become engulfed in the blanket of the twilight cosmos. It all melted away piece by piece until Jasper realized she had been brought to her knees by the force of her release, still clinging so desperately to Peridot’s hips that she had dragged her down, too. The window and all its splendid view had disappeared when she pressed her face to the nook between Peridot’s shoulder blades. She could feel Peridot heaving in breaths as she fought diligently to keep up with the volume of Jasper’s release.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, she heard Peridot moan, “Stars, Jasper, aren’t you done yet?”

It just made her cling tighter to Peridot’s hips to keep her from squirming.

There was a lot. Enough to make a geode. Perhaps even more than that. Jasper wasn’t keeping track. It was only when she sat up and saw Peridot sprawled before her that she realized what she had just done. Her silhouette was fittingly reminiscent of Pearl’s round abdomen, looking aptly full. Peridot had gotten exactly what she’d asked for, whether she had wanted this or not.

When Peridot looked back at her, Jasper could see that she had nibbled on her lower lip until it glowed a steely aquamarine color. Her eyes were glazed with satisfaction. Her arms shook as she grew weary of holding herself up, frail now that the afterglow settled upon them. Even her hair was in frazzled disarray.

Finally, Jasper began to come back to her senses. She remembered where she was, she remembered what she’d done. They were in the middle of the Midnight City, rushing through Sector 12 in a shuttle that was fast approaching the docking bay. There was supposed to be no trace of this encounter remaining when they left this shuttle, and yet Peridot had already made a mess of the window and Jasper’s cock was likely the only thing keeping the geode’s worth of release from leaking onto the floor.

A couple of curses crossed Jasper’s lips.

Peridot’s only acknowledgement was a sigh and a roll of her hips. She gave up on trying to hold herself up and simply lay with her face against the floor and her hips perked  to keep Jasper’s interest. Though judging by how her knees looked to be slipping out from beneath her, this wouldn’t last long, either.   
There was only one solution Jasper could see and it involved putting Peridot to work. She grabbed a fistful of Peridot’s hair and pulled her head up. “See that?” she said.

A noise of complaint was all Peridot granted her, not happy about being tugged around when she was trying to relax and soak in the post-coital sloth.

It didn’t stop Jasper from giving her hair another pull. “Look at the mess.”

Finally, Peridot’s eyes focused on the lines of fluid release that streaked the window and pooled in the creases of the sash and seal and the floor. And for all of that, all she offered was a tired-sounding, “Oops.”

Not quite good enough.

Jasper pushed her head closer. “I meant it when I said no one can know we did this,” she told her. “No one can find out. Now clean it up.”

The whimper from Peridot did not sound like protest. On the contrary—Jasper could feel her clench from the inside with the reverberations of rekindled arousal.

Licentious little gem, wasn’t she?

Peridot put her tongue to work. With kitten-licks, she started on the window, guided by Jasper’s hand in her hair. Her tongue flicked out, smearing saliva over the glass in a useless maneuver, but it was the gesture that counted. She slurped up the puddles that remained.

They passed into Sector 13. They didn’t have a lot of time.

Jasper pulled Peridot’s head up with enough force to have her sitting up on her knees once more, arms floundering to catch herself on the window. “You done yet?”

“Almost,” she simpered, sweet as could be.

“Not a trace gets left behind,” Jasper said. “Nothing.” She flashed Peridot a meaningful expression and could only hope she was not too lost in the moment to understand. It shouldn’t need to be spelled out for her what Jasper implied. And then she placed a hand on the small of Peridot’s back and began to pull out from her warm and cordial mooring.

Apparently Peridot caught on fast. She flailed and grabbed Jasper by the hip to keep her from pulling away. “ _Wait!_ ” She shrieked. “Wait, wait, wait. Y-you mean...?”  
“Yes.”

“ _I can’t hold all this in! You’re cracked, Jasper—I’m not a pearl, I can’t—_ ”

“You’re the one who wanted me to fuck you like one.” Jasper purposefully removed Peridot’s hand from her hip. “So if you can’t, you’ll just have to clean it up, too.”

“ _Fuck_.” Peridot’s curse was punctuated by a wet popping sound as Jasper slipped out of her. Immediately, her back arched as she willed every muscle to tighten, tighten. Cursed her impractically full belly, cursed the fact that Jasper had fucked her so open that there was very she could do to stop the cum that very much wanted to rush back out.

She was not a pearl. That much became obvious with the first bead of flecked release that found its way out. Jasper mused on how lovely the colors were—pure white and vibrant iron-red framed by the sorry cerulean hue that resulted from such a zealous fuck. And then it began to trickle down the inside of Peridot’s thigh as the first of many to come. It caught in the fabric of her leggings and soaked in.

The next drop was not so lucky. Nor was the next. Or the next. They dripped to the floor, hitting the tile with soft, drizzling taps. And there was more yet to follow.

Peridot began to panic, her breath coming in quick bursts. “ _I-I can’t hold it in, Jasper! How do you expect me to do this?_ ” A soft, breathy sob as she seemed to give up entirely for a moment. It was only for a split second, but it resulted in a sudden rush of cum that pooled on the floor between her knees before she finally gathered up enough frantic energy to clamp up once more and stem the flow. She gasped in a few shaky breaths, only to look back and see Jasper watching her with something that looked remarkably like amusement. “Fuck you,” she hissed. She wanted to lace her voice with venom, but her heart wasn’t in it.

Jasper just shrugged in reply. “This was what you wanted.”

Peridot groaned. She should have realized what she was getting herself into before she demanded it. Her eyes went a little distant as she stared down at the puddle of cum that awaited her attention. It was still brazenly scalding from the heat of Jasper’s body. But better to down it warm than cold...

The sound of irreverent slurping filled the shuttle. Jasper watched with folded arms as Peridot rocked forward on her knees and obeyed. Her every movement was stiff and calculated, trying not to jostle her abdomen, trying not to lose the control over the excessive amount of fluid bursting to find its way out. Not even to speak of the unwelcome cramping that accompanied the taut stretch of her belly.

Jasper reached out with a curled finger and traced up the lush of Peridot’s cunt, collecting spilled cum. She found all the little crevices where it had gathered—in the folds of her labia, the fluttering niche of her entrance, the juncture of her thighs. She gathered it all up—arguably mixed with plenty of Peridot’s own juices—and presented it to her upon a knuckle, thick and shimmering.

She received a skeptical glare from Peridot.

“C’mon.” Jasper nudged her finger closer. It touched Peridot’s upper lip before she made any move to accept it. Then, and only then, did her tongue poke out to lap it up. She looked achingly full and worn out.

They passed into Sector 14 at last. The docking bay was just around the corner.

“Did you get what you wanted?” Jasper asked as she tugged the seat of Peridot’s uniform back into place. The resilient fabric snapped down on her skin with a sharp noise. She yelped, then moaned.

“Yes...”

The fabric didn’t quite make it back into proper place. Half of Peridot’s quim was spilling out one side and the material rode up to expose her ass far more than usual. Nothing could hide the fact that her leggings were stained and ripped in large gouges. She looked ravaged.

Jasper snapped the fabric one more time for good measure. “Are you going to stop complaining about that pearl?”

“Yes!”

It was settled, then. Jasper let her clothes reappear on her body, concealing any sign that she had just been engaging in illicit activities with a gem half her rank. Peridot was not so graceful—she took her time trying to stand up again, her mechanical limbs doing most of the work for her. Every movement was calculated and tense, and she appeared to still be holding her body in a vice-like state for fear of cum leaking everywhere.

“Can’t say I’m not impressed,” Jasper said. Her eyes tracked Peridot’s progress as she clung to one of the seats to help her stand.

This earned her a look of confusion and mild irritation. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean I’m impressed. Thought for sure I wouldn’t fit. You proved me wrong. Proved you were worth my time, too.” She glanced out the window, watching as the large hull of the docking bay grew closer until she could see the detail in the metalwork. “Maybe we’ll do it again.”  

A smug expression settled on Peridot’s face. It appeared to be what she needed to finally stand herself upright. And though her knees buckled inward like that of a newborn fawn, she looked damn proud to take those first few steps off the shuttle and into the terminal. She looked a mess, but she wore it well.

She still didn’t look terribly comfortable, however.

It was a short walk back through the terminal and to the bay where their ship was docked. Lapis was leaning against a pillar, playing with a palm-sized ball of water she had conjured. It twirled around her finger in a lazy dance to keep her entertained while she waited. When she lay eyes on the pair of them, her reaction was to Peridot. “What happened to _you?_ ”

Peridot shuffled up to her with about as much grace as a flightless bird and took Lapis by the arm. “Long story, Lazuli,” she said. “But we have to go _now_. I don’t know how much longer I can hold this...”

As Peridot dragged her away, Lapis looked over her shoulder at Jasper with an eyebrow quirked. Jasper simply responded with a non-committal shrug. There wasn’t much to say. Likely Peridot would brag about the whole thing later anyway.

Jasper watched them leave, arms folded over her chest. Tried not to chuckle as she saw a trickle of cum smeared down the inside of Peridot’s thigh (she really would be wobbling the whole way home).  Then with a long, tired sigh, Jasper turned and went to collect her things.

 

* * *

 

The elevator ride was long and uncomfortable because she had to share it with two other quartzes. One got off on the fifteenth floor, the other on the seventeenth. Jasper took the elevator all the way up to the thirty-first.

Coming back to her apartment was routine by now. She walked in, the lights flickered on, she tossed her bag down next to the door as it closed behind her. It was an old duffle bag, the very same one allotted to her as a new recruit the day after she’d come out of the ground. Ever since then, it had been her only possession. It carried everything for her—identification, communicator, tools, souvenirs. Never went on a mission without it, never came back without it.

The apartment was quiet. Always was. It was a little too big for her, but she wouldn’t complain. She’d had ones that were too small for her back when she was not as high-ranking. But after gaining status, she’d earned some space to call her own. It was covered in a thin film of dust. Always was, always would be. Jasper was away on missions more often than not. But even when she was here, it felt empty and cold and she didn’t like to clean and didn’t want to hire anyone to clean for her, so it stayed dusty.

She dragged the duffle along as she moved down the hall. Somewhere along the way, she’d made the decision to undress, so by the time she sat down at the console in her work room, she was naked. That was how she preferred things when she was alone.

Turned the console on.

Sorted through messages.

Nothing new.

Glanced through reports.

Nothing new.

She turned to unpack her bag. Her communicator, her identification card. She had brought with her an atmospheric measurement device because she’d bought it and it seemed neat, but she never had time to use it while on Earth. That got unpacked, too.

Then her fingers brushed up against something cool and silky. Foreign. Jasper frowned. It was only when she pulled it out that she remembered. A shell. Roughly-hewn and ridged on the outside, lustrous and smooth on the inside. It was shaped like a crescent. She had picked it up from the beach as a souvenir after the victory on Earth. The memory brought a smile to Jasper’s lips as she turned the shell over in her hand.

She got up from her seat, cradling the trinket in her palm. The lights flickered on and off as they followed her path down the hall and into the first room on the left.

To an outsider, this room looked to be filled with nothing but clutter. Odds and ends that didn’t belong together and were stacked in imperfect ways. A decorative-looking mask teetered atop an old branch. Shimmering, glass-like crystals lay dusty across a surface that looked like it could have been a piece of furniture, but was half-hidden under an ornate-looking rug.

Jasper stood in the middle of it all, considering where to place her new memento. She wanted to find the perfect place. The ideal spot so that she could look at it every time she passed this room. She wanted to remember this mission...and the little pearl the shell reminded her of.

After much consideration, she set the shell atop an ancient-looking marble carving. Nudged it into place with her fingers until it was perfect, then took a step back and smiled. There. Now she would remember Earth and remember Pearl. She admired it for a few more moments, enjoyed how the light played off the nacre. In a few more years, this shell would become as dusty as everything else. But for now, it was the most beautiful and luminescent thing here.

As she walked back down the hall to the console, she had to pause at the window. There, several sectors beyond, were the proffering hands of the Nursery. They rose above the skyline. Jasper had looked out this window so many times, but she had never given that place much thought until now. The Nursery was where Pearl lived. She was there alone, incubating as she was intended. Jasper supposed she should have felt good about that, but she was finding it difficult. And she was finding it difficult, too, to pull herself away from the window.

The sound of an incoming message on her console pulled Jasper from her reverie. Her immediate thought was that Yellow Diamond might be trying to contact her, for better or for worse, and her chest clenched. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Quickly, she clothed herself once more as she rushed into the other room and swung herself into the chair. She didn’t even look at the name attached to the message before she opened it.

To her surprise, it was not Yellow Diamond, but Peridot’s face that opened fullscreen before her. She appeared far too delighted. “Hi!”

Jasper was less delighted. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

Peridot skillfully ignored her discontent. Instead, she layered it on thick with nonchalance. “Yeah, I’m just seeing if you made it back.”

“I did.” Jasper looked her up and down. Peridot appeared to be back to her usual self, showing no signs of being fucked dizzy earlier in the day. “You look like you made it back fine alright, too.”

She waved a carefree hand. “Oh, yeah. Had a bit of a rough time. Might have to replace the seats in my pod. But Lapis helped get me back. And helped with other things.” A brilliant green flush crossed over her cheeks before she got herself back on track. “But um...look, that’s not why I called.”

Jasper had figured as much. Usually Peridot did not just contact her out of the blue, even as persistent as she was. Certainly never to engage in small-talk. “Go on.”

“Look. You asked earlier about the pearl. And I’m—” Peridot glanced over her shoulder, as if to make sure she was alone. She leaned in close to the screen and lowered her voice. “I’m going to tell you something that you cannot tell anyone. Anyone, do you hear?”

Misbehavior was a rare thing from Peridot. Re-routing shuttles, disconnecting cameras, and now secret messages? Certainly they were conversing now over an encrypted line. Peridot was not stupid enough to speak to her over their typical, heavily-monitored channel. It had Jasper more than curious. She leaned back in her seat. “I’m listening.”

Shifty, Peridot began. “When I took Pearl back to the Nursery, I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought the place would at least be empty. But it’s not. Jasper, there’s hundreds of them still in there. It’s like a prison. And I think Yellow Diamond is just going to leave her there with the rest of them. I know you have an illogical affinity for this pearl. And if that’s the case...” She huffed, as if disbelieving her own capacity for empathy. “...maybe you shouldn’t leave her there.”

A feeling welled up inside Jasper. She didn’t know what it was, didn’t know what to call it. Maybe it was urgency or dread. It could have been fear. She couldn’t put a real name to it—Jasper didn’t know the word. Whatever it was, it moved her. From the core to the very tips of her fingers, she rattled with it as she thought about those twin towers that reached to the sky, stacked with pearl upon pearl. Alone, forgotten, crying. And _her_ pearl was now among them.

What if she was frightened? What if she cursed Jasper for not doing as she said she would? She’d brought Pearl back to Homeworld alive and even gifted her to the most powerful diamond of them all. Yet it didn’t feel right to her. It didn’t feel like she’d fulfilled what she’d set out to do for that lost little pearl.

Jasper’s expression must have gone vacant, because Peridot piped up once more. “But you didn’t hear any of this from me, okay? Promise?”

Lately she and Peridot had been holding many secrets between them. Perhaps too many for Jasper’s comfort. “I promise,” she said. And in a strange turn of events, Jasper met Peridot’s eyes through the pixels of the screen and said something that she never had before. “Thank you.”

Peridot couldn’t hide the surprise in her eyes. It took her an awkward beat to muster up a response. “You’re welcome,” she said. The words sounded foreign on her tongue.

Like that, they soaked in the oddly amiable moment between them. Neither of them seemed to know what to do next. Perhaps there was nothing that needed to be said. So Peridot turned the channel off and the screen went dark, plunging Jasper into solitude once more.

Jasper ran a hand over her face, a deep sigh sinking into her chest.

Ever since placing Pearl in Yellow Diamond’s possession, something hadn’t felt right. She’d managed to push it to the back of her mind, but now it reared its head with a vengeance.

The lithe shadow of Pearl’s silhouette danced across her mind, a little ballerina suspended in perpetual _attitude_. She thought about how ethereal she looked when quiescent, almost peaceful. How she had looked upon Pearl for hours, losing herself in the perfect form of her neck and shoulders. The fabric of her flesh beneath Jasper’s desirous hands.

She stood at the window, looking out upon the towering profile of the Nursery, bathed in dusk. Unexplainable yearning rose inside her the longer she stood there, as if staring down an enemy. Like the Nursery had stolen something from her and she was preparing for battle to take back what belonged to her. That was the closest Jasper could come to describing it.

It was time, she decided, to seek an audience with Yellow Diamond again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all my betas!!
> 
> Sarah (http://superlunarloser.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Zoey
> 
> Maggie
> 
> Tat
> 
> Mitsu
> 
> (Please message me separately if you’d like links to your blog!)


	9. Chapter 9

Nursery nights were long. Some would say that time in the Midnight City was nothing but one perpetual night, but Pearl knew better. The wane of the moons and the vibrant halo of color over the mountains revealed the exact time when the sun just barely kissed the hidden side of the horizon before retreating. There was a day and there was a night and Pearl sat alone in her cell for all of it.

Since Peridot’s departure, the Nursery had grown quieter. The occasional shrill and shriek still kept her tied to the reality of where she was—she could not simply close her eyes and will herself to imagine she was in another place. The sounds always brought her back.

When she wasn’t curled upon the bench beneath the window, she was pacing. The geode inside her weighed down her steps, but she barely gave it a thought. It was habit not to think about the geode. To survive being a pearl, she recalled, she couldn’t let herself think about it, lest she grow loathsome of it or, even worse, affectionate and attached.

The geode was nothing. Weighed nothing. Would be nothing to her.

Detach. Control. Disengage. Live in the space she had created inside herself so long ago. It was a vacancy she crawled into while she incubated, a cocoon with no chrysalis, no rebirth. Just a place to go so she did not have to be in her own body for too long.

Every pearl had a similar place inside them. Even the ones that howled and cried around her. Likely they were lost in there somewhere, having been trapped for so long. They’d disappeared so deep inside that there was no coming back out, and so what remained were shells and anchors.

Still, Pearl tried to reach out. With so much time alone, she was bound to try. When the horizon glowed, she could see the shadows of the cells next to her cast into the hallway. Her own silhouette stretched behind the geometric bonds of her cage from where the window poured in light behind her. And in the shadow of the cell to her right, she could see the form of another pearl. Silent, for the most part. Had never uttered a word. She skittered from one side of the cell to the other on occasion—her shadow moved and scurried out of the corner of Pearl’s eye. Like a marionette dancing behind a screen.

One day, she caught her pressed up against their shared wall, hunched there at the front of the cell. Pearl came to sit down beside her, only cold stone separating them.

It was a strange urge within her to try and communicate. She would try anything at this point, anything at all. And this pearl beside her had been so quiet the whole time that she could only hope that her silence was more meaningful than the screams of the others. She pressed her hands to the wall as if she would somehow be able to connect with this strange neighbor through the pads of her fingers against the concrete. “Hello?” she whispered.

The shadow shifted.

Pearl tried again. “Hello?”

This time, she received an answer. A meek-sounding, almost inaudible “hello?”

Her heart fluttered. For the first time since she had been here, someone responded to her. It was a promising start. Perhaps she had found a pearl that had not gone mad. “Yes, hello. H-how long have you been in here?”

“Hello?”

“Yes, I can hear you.”

“Hello?”

She paused. Something wasn’t quite right.

“Hello?”

Pearl’s excitement crumbled. She pressed her forehead against the concrete. “Please say something...”

“Hello?”

In silence, Pearl sat. The echo of the remnant engulfed her. That’s what she was, after all: a remnant. A hollow vessel that had once been alive and conscious, now a ghost inhabiting the body that persisted long after she had vacated. A corpse mimicking sounds that likely held no meaning anymore.

_Hello? Hello? Hello?_

 

* * *

 

The quartz soldiers that lined the hall did not bow to Jasper when she passed them this time. Their hooded eyes peered from beneath their helms to follow her into Yellow Diamond’s temple for the second time that week. Jasper could feel them. Why Yellow Diamond had agreed to meet with her on such short notice was a mystery to them.

Jasper kept her chin fixed at a strong angle that made her feel more resolute, more poised. This meeting could go one of two ways. She expected ridicule, she expected threats, and she expected the blatant denial of her request. Even in the face of scorn from her own diamond, however, Jasper could not help but to try.

As she passed her assemble brethren, she thought about the lonely, broken little pearl incubating in a dark corner of the Nursery. She thought about the uncertainty on Peridot’s face when she spoke of that place and the conditions she’d left Pearl in. She thought about what it would feel like to take Pearl by the hand and lead her out of her cell and back into the light of day. It made her feel—

“And here you are again,” Yellow Diamond said, uncrossing her legs as Jasper came to a halt before her cathedra. “How did I know I’d see your face in my temple once more?”

“You know many things, My Diamond,” Jasper said with arms crossed over her chest to mimic the shape of the diamond upon the front of her uniform. Her words were nothing more than a supplication and they both knew it.

“I do know many things, and I think I know why you’re here. So let me guess.” A demure finger found its way to Yellow Diamond’s chin. “You are here because of that pearl.”

A rustle of indignation rippled through Yellow Diamond’s court. Her soldiers shuffled.

Jasper could feel the heat riding in her face. The word ‘disgraceful’ echoed in her mind. Disappointment. “My Diamond,” she said, “I have reason to believe that this pearl knows more about Rose Quartz than what she is telling us. I request—” A hiss from somewhere behind her caused her to falter. “—I request access to the pearl for further interrogation.”

Yellow Diamond sounded bored, but her eyes revealed otherwise. “The pearl was already interrogated. Your peridot sent a very thorough and complete analysis of everything that occurred on Earth and has attributed a majority of that information directly to the pearl. What else do you think you can get from such a defective creature?”

It didn’t make much sense to Jasper. From what she knew of the interrogation, very little of their information came from Pearl. She revealed fairly few details, all things considered. Some information on the humans of the planet, some information about the fact that Rose Quartz was no longer on Earth. Yet Peridot’s report had been long...

No time to think on that now. She would have to probe Peridot later.

“I think she knows a lot more than she said. Perhaps she doesn’t even know everything that she knows,” Jasper said.

“Oh? And how would she manage that?”

Impulse and wit kept Jasper moving forward when she had nothing to fall back on. Nothing but her own willpower and desire. So she concocted the best rationale that she could in her attempt to persuade her diamond. “Perhaps Rose Quartz did not tell her pearl outright where she was going. But as Rose Quartz’s pearl, she must know something that could be of use. Even if she could direct us to a star system or knew more about the vessel Rose Quartz commandeered, we might be able to focus our search efforts. It could help us find her.”

Jasper did not realize how hard her fists were clenched until her bones grated when she loosened her fingers.

Yellow Diamond’s eyes narrowed. For a long moment, she surveyed Jasper with an uncomfortable intensity. Finally, she leaned back in her cathedra and shook her head. “You’re going through an awful lot of trouble just to rut upon that pearl again.”

The eyes of the court bore down on her. Jasper could feel the weight of it on her back with enough force to make her flinch. “My Diamond,” she said. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“If you’re trying to hide your desire for her, you’re not doing a very good job of it,” Yellow Diamond said. Her head was thrown back and she looked down her nose in a way that made Jasper feel even smaller in her presence. An uncomfortable feeling in and of itself. “I think you forget that I saw what you did with her on your way back from Earth. Every last second of recorded evidence of your failure to adhere to the dignity of your rank and post. Did you forget that I watched you mount her like a corrupted prasiolite in heat?”

Her tongue felt leaden. “No.”

The beratement didn’t end there. “And not only did you mount her—you serviced her. On your hands and knees, you serviced a pearl and you looked like an imbecile. I never thought I’d see the day where a quartz of my guard would degrade herself to servicing a pearl. Have you no idea how pathetic you looked?”

“Yes, My Diamond,” Jasper sucked on the inside of her cheeks, trying to ignore the whispers coming from the court. “I’m sure I looked pathetic. And weak.”

“And yet you seek to engage with that pearl again? The one that is still incubating with your geode?”

There were no more words. With no small amount of guilt in her eyes, Jasper looked up at her diamond in silence.

Yellow Diamond regarded Jasper with curled lip for a moment longer. She tutted. The sharp sounds of disapproval reverberated in the chamber so that all her court and guard would know of her disgust. Then, a wave of her hand toward the quartz soldier on her right. “Fetch me _my_ pearl. Bring her to me.”

The court was abuzz now. Tittering and murmuring at the prospect of Yellow Diamond bringing her own pearl into the temple revealed that the occurrence was a rare one. Jasper wouldn’t have known either way. She wasn’t often invited to Yellow Diamond’s court.

“You’re persistent,” Yellow Diamond said. “I want to see how persistent you are once you realize how ridiculous you look lusting after a pearl.”

This meeting was not going in Jasper’s favor. And yet, Jasper was trapped. If she broke down and abandoned her argument, it was as good as admitting to lying directly to her diamond’s face. And so Jasper had no choice but to persist. “My Diamond, I simply want to determine the whereabouts of Rose Quartz. I served in the war on Earth. It was my first battle. I looked Rose Quartz in the eye as I fought against her and her armies and it was in that war that I proved myself a worthy soldier in your ranks, My Diamond. Between Rose Quartz and I, it’s personal. That is why I desire to track her down.”

“You and five thousand other jaspers. I’m not impressed.”

Jasper could feel her claws digging into her palms. “But if you just let me—”

“My Diamond?”

All heads turned to the threshold behind Yellow Diamond. There in the doorway, escorted by two quartz soldiers, was Yellow Diamond’s pearl. She looked freshly roused from her chambers, as she was bundled from head to foot in what looked like layers upon layers of flouncy chiffon. It appeared to be a robe of some sort, as it was loose on her body and secured around her only where her hands kept it wrapped at her waist. Her sweet yellow coloration was contrasted by the sour look on her face.

“Pearl, come here.”

The chiffon fabric bounced and fluttered as Pearl made her way towards her Diamond. Jasper caught glimpses of long, pale legs poking out from beneath the robe as she walked. The worst part was that Jasper couldn’t stop herself from looking.

Graceful, demure, alluring. It reminded her of another pearl she had become acquainted with not long ago...

Yellow Diamond set a large hand on her pearl’s back and looked to Jasper. “So. You wish to entertain yourself with pearls, do you?”

“I only wish to find Rose—”

“ _Stop. Lying_.” For the first time, Yellow Diamond raised her voice. Jasper found it to be one of the more terrifying things she’d ever experienced. The sound echoed about the chamber, leaving nothing but silence from both court and guard in its wake. “You wish to have that pearl back so that you can fuck her while you trifle about with what little information you think you can get out of her? Fine. But I want my court to see what a pathetic display you are. And more importantly,” her sharp eyes turned to the many rows of quartzes lining the halls, “I want my guard to see just how ridiculous a jasper looks on her knees before a pearl. Make a useful example of your mistakes. And if you still want to degrade yourself like a fool afterwards, then fine. You may have that incubating, defective mess. She was just going to rot away in the Nursery anyway.”

Pearl appeared less than pleased. One look at Jasper and she recoiled. “But My Diamond, I don’t want to—”

“Hush, Pearl. You’ll do as you’re told.” Yellow Diamond gave her a little push forward.

A few staggered steps brought Pearl before Jasper. The corners of her lips turned down in disgust as she looked at the brute she was expected to entertain. She very much acted like Jasper was beneath her and, perhaps, in a way, she was. She was the pearl that belonged to Yellow Diamond, after all. Freshly roused from her chambers within the temple, pampered and polished on a daily basis. The price tag on this pearl’s head was likely one thousand times greater than what Jasper was worth. The only difference was that Pearl was an object, while Jasper was a soldier. Both disposable, but one was much more entertaining to own than the other.

Jasper supposed that, in a way, Yellow Diamond owned both of them. The thought had never occurred to her before now.

“Well?” Yellow Diamond barked. She pointed to the ground before her. “Do you want that pearl or not? Kneel.”

Jasper did.

“Now show my court just how you enjoy treating pearls.”

Jasper did that, too.

On her knees, she resolved to drown out the sound of the court and guard behind her. Their gasps and whispers and leering eyes. They meant nothing to her when it came to the idea of rescuing her pearl from the Nursery. The pearl with the pretty blue eyes and soft lips was nothing like the one who stood before her with a look of utter displeasure on her face. Her features were sharp and exasperated.

With a single motion, Pearl let the chiffon robe drop from her body. Where she had once been swaddled in cloth from neck to toe, she was suddenly bare before the entirety of the court as if this was all too routine. Every angle of her body—the jut of her hips, the perk of her breasts, legs so slim that they left a hollow between her thighs—was on display for anyone to drink in as they pleased. Jasper was suddenly eye-level with the apex of her thighs. What little pubic hair she had was dusted with powdered gold. Each and every strand was laden with shimmering ore as if placed there with a few, careful daubs of a brush to serve as an indulgent invitation to what lay beyond. Such cosmetics were rare to see on gems and so Jasper couldn’t help but stare. The alluring sight set sparks alight inside of her. The gold had been applied for someone, but Jasper was fairly certain it wasn’t meant for her.

_What did gold taste like?_ Jasper wondered.  That demure tuft of hair upon the mound of Pearl’s sex held the answer, and so Jasper began to crawl forth on her hands and knees, beckoned by the prospect. Her tongue raced across her lips to wet them in preparation for meeting that golden plume with a kiss—

Suddenly, there was a foot planted into her face. Jasper grunted and opened one eye to see that it was Pearl holding her back. She balanced there on one leg, the other raised high in such a way that Jasper was provided a rather explicit view of her cunt. Probably not Pearl’s intent, given that she appeared very disgruntled.

Pearl looked back over her shoulder. “My Diamond,” she whined once more. This time, her voice was most pleading.

“Pearl.” That was all Yellow Diamond had to say. The tone in her voice prompted Pearl to remove her foot from Jasper’s face and stand up a little straighter.

It did not, however, improve her expression of revulsion.

Jasper tried not to think about it. There was a lot she had to push out of her mind in order to move forward once more. She couldn’t think about those watching her do this or the shame that hung over her head. She just thought about Rose Quartz’s pearl and, for a moment, she could imagine it was her that she knelt before now.

The beauty of Pearl’s vulva was apparent once Jasper got close enough to touch. The gap between Pearl’s thighs was enough so that she could see the slit between them and the furl of her inner labia where they poked out from between the closure of her outer lips. They, too, were dusted in gold cosmetics, a mouth-watering presentation.

She wanted to suck every last bit of gold off this pearl’s cunt...

Jasper’s tongue was the first to meet Pearl’s body in a broad, bold stroke up her mons. The texture of her fine, well-groomed hair prickled at her as she lapped from slit to pubis.

Above, she could hear Pearl gasp.

She tasted like perfume and silk. Metallic from the gold that now coated Jasper’s tongue. Not nearly as sour as Jasper had first anticipated—the hard angles of her face and expression were misleading. She licked again to confirm that, yes, this pearl was rather delightful to the senses. A perfectly prepared little plaything, fit for a diamond, now beneath the ministrations of her tongue.

Before Jasper even had the chance to dip her head down to explore more, a thin hand tangled in her mane. It pressed against the back of her head, pushing her further into the aromatic, sequestered crevice between her legs.

When she looked up, she could see that Pearl was flushed. She looked infuriated at being in such a state; her lips were curled. “Get on with it,” she said. “Yellow Diamond doesn’t have all day.”

A pang of something sharp twisted in Jasper’s gut at the mere idea of a pearl ordering her about. All her life, she had known pearls to be beneath soldiers such as her. And yet here she was in the midst of Yellow Diamond’s pearl where it was apparently perfectly acceptable for her to posture herself before her, submissive. Was this the humiliation Yellow Diamond spoke of? Was this the departure from the natural order of gemkind that she had wrought upon herself when she allowed herself to become so enamored with Rose Quartz’s pearl?

_Or was it arousal she felt...?_

Arousal and humiliation were too closely tied to each other at that moment, too close for her to even discern, and so Jasper simply did what she had always been taught to do. She followed orders.

Pressing herself closer to the folds of Pearl’s cunt, Jasper nudged her face as far into the gap between her thighs as she could. Pearl had to adjust her stance a little wider to give her more room, but eventually she was there, tilting her head up so that Pearl could straddle her face. Her lips met those of the Pearl’s cunt in a strange sort of kiss. They were so soft. So pliant. She sucked them into her mouth and they popped softly when she let them go.

Her lips were golden.

Distantly, Jasper could hear Yellow Diamond addressing her court. She spoke about subservience, about disgrace, about weakness.

The hands in Jasper’s hair tightened as her tongue slipped into Pearl’s cunt and roamed into the hidden reaches. Her clit was discreet and innocuous where it hid beneath the hood. It would not come out yet, not even for Jasper’s persistent tongue, and so she ventured further to sample a taste the passage further back. When her tongue easily dipped into her entrance, Jasper almost drew back in surprise. She hadn’t expected Pearl to be accessed so easily. No resistance, no tight fit. She was open beyond anything Jasper expected from a pearl. Not even the width of her tongue was quite enough to fully breech her.

How could such a petite pearl be so wide-set?

Pearl chirped in frustration when Jasper pulled away, for even when she pushed her hands down upon Jasper’s head with all her might, it was not enough strength to even remotely faze a quartz soldier. She lost the battle for control before Jasper even realized there was a battle.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

Jasper answered with two fingers pressed up against the entrance to her cunt. The wet bloom of her labia clung to her claws as she eased them gently past the rim. Tried not to hurt her; knew she succeeded when she felt Pearl’s legs buckle and tremble against her.

Servicing. Debasing. Wrong. Unnatural. Yellow Diamond was still speaking to her court and Jasper could only catch a few words. Tried to pretend they weren’t about her as she leaned forward once more as guided by Pearl’s hands and placed a deliberate kiss upon the hidden bud of her clit. It earned her a shudder.

Her fingers twisted up inside Pearl to fill her. Three fingers may have even been necessary for such a task, for she was both wide and deep, as if built that way, as if built for a diamond—

The click of something hard and manufactured against Jasper’s claws made her stop. It felt like striking treasure, yet Jasper wasn’t quite sure what she’d found or even if she was supposed to find it. Brow furrowed in concentration, she wiggled her fingers once more to confirm that, yes, somewhere far inside this pearl’s cunt was a smooth, synthetic little disc. From its orientation, it seemed like a cap of some sort. A cap situated right over the threshold of her cervix.

Strange, very strange. Jasper wondered what it was for. She prodded at it again out of curiosity.

“Stop that!” Pearl flinched, her voice strained as she tried to keep the court from hearing her. “Leave it alone.” Her eyes were wide and apprehensive, something that looked very much like alarm. She looked almost nervous for a moment. Like Jasper was going to do or say something terrible.

It was then that Jasper realized that perhaps she had discovered something she wasn’t supposed to. An illicit tidbit of information that a gem like her was not supposed to know about...

...a pearl with a cap over her cervix. How strange.

She didn’t push the issue. Jasper directed her fingers away from the strange object and curled them forwards instead. Her claws were not kind, but Pearl didn’t complain. Not outwardly, at least. In fact, a delicate little moan crossed her lips to mark the moment when the pads of Jasper’s fingers found the hidden inner reaches of her clit.

The court and guard went silent. Jasper had her back to the audience, but Pearl faced them fully. They could see the way she drew her lower lip between her teeth to silence the moan that rose in her throat and the way her breasts bounced when she jerked down against Jasper’s fingers. They could see it all, live in the moment of pleasure with her. For some of them, Jasper imagined, this was as close to pleasure as they had ever gotten; viewing it from the outside.

Jasper dipped her head down to suck Pearl’s clit between her lips. Still so tiny, almost too difficult to detect. She was relentless, however, in finding the sweet spot under the hood. Small as it was, it was still sensitive to the flick of her tongue and suction of her mouth.

“Oh...” Pearl faltered in her resolve to keep her moans to herself. Her chin dropped to her chest, lips parted as if ready to gasp at any moment.

Yellow Diamond spoke up from her cathedra. “Let them hear, Pearl,” she said. “Let them hear what she’s doing to you.”

That opened the flood gates. Pearl’s hands tightened in Jasper’s hair as she pulled herself closer, grinding down against Jasper’s face with all her might. A loud, long moan left her throat. She tilted her head back so that every gem in the temple could see her pale, supple throat. Unmarked, pristine. And then she lifted one of her legs with a ballerina’s grace and hooked her knee over Jasper’s shoulder until they were entangled.

Two fingers became three. Three fingers became four. Slick gushed from Pearl’s vulva with the tighter fit and mingled in Jasper’s mouth with saliva. What Jasper couldn’t manage to slurp up dripped down her chin and landed in obscene pools in the cleft between her breasts and soaked the front of her uniform. Not even the sacred diamond fastened at the center escaped the mess.

Pretty little noises from Pearl’s lips echoed in the chamber. Breathy. Dripping with desperation. Her hips moved in tight circles over Jasper’s face until there was no mistaking the fact that she was enjoying herself thoroughly upon one of Yellow Diamond’s high-ranking jaspers. It was plain for all to see that the jasper beneath her worked in service of the pearl to pleasure her, submit to her. This was what Yellow Diamond wished for her court to see—this image of unnatural dominance. The smaller and weaker gem taking from the larger and stronger. The strange dichotomy. Even in the face of the wrongness of sex, Jasper should have been the one taking, while Pearl serviced. That was how it was always supposed to be.

Pearl clutched at Jasper’s hair and pulled. “Oo?” she looked back over her shoulder toward the cathedra. “My Diamond? My Diamond, please...”

The waver and pitch of her voice could only mean one thing.

“Permission granted,” Yellow Diamond said. Her eyes were glowing.

That was all it took. Within moments, Pearl was doubled over, pulling Jasper close to her with leg and arms, practically wrapping herself around her entire head to keep her in place while she reached her end.

Jasper didn’t mind. She worked with furious intentions, her senses piqued to every ‘oo’ and ‘aah’ from the pearl that wrapped herself around her body. Even cradled her with her free arm to keep her steady as she rocked and twitched her way to her release, crooning her delight for all to hear.

It was a lovely sound.

Not quite as lovely as the sounds Rose Quartz’s pearl made, but that was okay. Jasper wasn’t doing this for Yellow Diamond’s pearl, after all.

Her orgasm was a shivering one. She sounded like a swooning dove, her cries a thing of beauty. It was almost gentle the way she trembled and slumped as she came, falling into Jasper’s arms. Her thighs twitched violently at first, but soon settled down until she was nothing but a boneless mess.

The room was silent.

Pearl sighed and cracked her eyes open. She looked so content there in Jasper’s grasp for a moment, so peaceful. It lasted only a second, however, before she seemed to remember where she was and what she was doing.

“Ugh,” she huffed and pushed Jasper’s head away. In an entirely graceless way, she fumbled her way to her feet, not even waiting for the fingers to leave her cunt before her fidgeting dislodged them by force. “Ugh, what a mess.”

“Come here, Pearl,” Yellow Diamond beckoned with one hand lowered towards her.

Pearl wasted no time in obeying. She skittered her way up to the cathedra, pausing only to grab the robe she’d cast aside. Didn’t even attempt to put it on properly at first—she swathed herself in chiffon as best she could while the garment was most certainly upside down so that she could hurry up to her diamond. And it was only when she was back in the safe, protective shield of Yellow Diamond’s palm that she began to fuss with situating the robe right again.

Still on her knees, breathless, and doused with slick all down her front, Jasper waited there for her diamond’s acknowledgement. Had someone told her a few weeks ago that this would be her predicament, she would not have believed them. Degraded and on trial before her esteemed diamond for the sake of a pearl...

“Well?” Yellow Diamond said. “How does it feel?”

Jasper wasn’t sure the answer to that question. She had enjoyed having her hands on Pearl, and yet the disapproval was beginning to weigh down on her the more she sat here soaking in the aftermath. She had been made an example of, that much was clear.

From her perch upon the cathedra, Pearl peered out from between a gap in Yellow Diamond’s fingers with scorn on her face. Jasper could see the judgement in her eyes all the way from where she knelt and, somehow, that made it even worse.

“Doesn’t feel good,” she finally answered, head bowed.

“Doesn’t feel good,” Yellow Diamond repeated for all to hear, her tone mocking. “Sounds about right. So am I to assume you are no longer interested in pursuing that pearl you were so set upon on earlier? Have you come to your senses?”

From beneath her tousled mane, Jasper looked up at her diamond. Despite everything, despite the jeers and criticism she knew would come, she was unshaken. “I still wish to take possession of that pearl in my efforts to find Rose Quartz.”

Yellow Diamond frowned and leaned back in her seat. The corners of her nose wrinkled in true distaste. Perhaps she had not been expecting that answer at all. “Interesting,” she said. “Interesting, interesting.”

The mechanics of Yellow Diamond’s mind worked behind her striking eyes. Unreadable, impassive, but mesmerizing. Jasper couldn’t help but watch with fascination as the threads of her fate were woven behind the mask her diamond wore. She hoped those threads were strong and the loom bound them tight.

Finally, Yellow Diamond made up her mind. Her mouth twitched. “Well. It sounds as though you truly are devout in your mission to capture Rose Quartz or, at the very least, discover her whereabouts. What a good soldier you are.” The words were too saccharine for Yellow Diamond to truly mean them in earnest. “So, very well. After Rose Quartz’s pearl has finished incubating, you may take her from the nursery. She is at your disposal.”

Jasper almost had no breath in which to answer. She sounded winded when she said, “Thank you, My Diamond.”

“Oh, and do be sure to get rid of that awful regalia she is wearing now. The star? It needs to go. Force her to regenerate promptly and make sure she is marked in proper fashion. And I expect to receive consistent reports on your progress. I want to make sure I made the right decision.”

“Thank you, My Diamond. I will, My Diamond.”

The court was not discreet in the way they whispered amongst themselves. Conspiracy and shock. Scandal and outrage.

Yellow Diamond tapped Pearl upon her back with a finger. “Go on back. Clean yourself up.”

With one last acidic glance at Jasper, Pearl shimmied her way toward the guards that waited to escort her back. Chiffon danced with her.

“That concludes my patience for today,” Yellow Diamond said. The wave of her hand was both curt and elegant. “You are all dismissed.”

From her knees, Jasper rose. The babble of the court behind her picked up the moment Yellow Diamond took her leave, as silence was no longer expected of them. There was so much talk and chatter, there were so many eyes on her as Jasper turned around.

She wiped a hand over her mouth. It was wet. Everything about her looked a mess: her hair, her uniform, the saliva that still glazed her breasts. And yet she was too proud to attend to it in front of the crowd. For them to see her fuss over her disheveled looks was for them to see her ashamed. She would not let them see that of her. Not today. And so, still marked by her servitude to a pearl, Jasper began the slow, painful walk back down the center aisle of the temple.

Pariah.

Noble gems of standing watched her go by with hands covering their mouths as they tittered to each other. Silks and taffeta rustled. The quartz soldiers were breathy and heated. Jasper could tell they were aroused from the way they shuffled and sniffed at the air as she passed, if only to catch a passing whiff of what a pearl’s cunt smelled like. Some of them met her with snarls. Most of them just looked ready to rut the closest thing that moved.

The first thing she did when she arrived home was call Peridot.

“You look awful,” she said. Very direct. One of the things Jasper liked about her.

“I just got out of a meeting with Yellow Diamond,” she explained. Her voice was tired, but her eyes were alive. “Tell me when that pearl’s due to have that geode.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Always be sure to check out my Tumblr for the illustrated versions!
> 
> http://usuallybutts.tumblr.com/post/145828182857/title-a-long-way-from-home-pairings-jaspearl

The next week crawled by with all the speed and weight of an armored tank. It was a week of anticipation and preparation. Slow in nature, but drawing to a close with an unstoppable persistence.

Seven days. It would be seven days, Peridot had informed her, until she would return to the Nursery to extract the geode from Pearl. Then six days. And then five...

Jasper spent time rummaging through the room where she kept her treasures. Somewhere in the hefty stacks of belongings, she knew she had a platform that could serve as a bed. It took her two hours, but she found the raised platform buried beneath a metal chest filled with red sand and a couple dozen pelts of some off-world creatures she’d come in contact with in her younger days. She dragged the platform over to the window, blew off the dust. The cloud hovered in the air, catching the rays of the Midnight Sun.

One of the legs on the platform was crooked. Looked broken. It would need to be fixed.

Jasper was still down on her hands and knees examining the broken leg when her communicator made a blipping sound. She’d received a message.

Without getting up from the floor, she stretched out to grab the communicator off the shelf. It probably would have been easier for her to simply stand and walk over to it, but she was already down on the ground, so she made a production out of reaching for it. Finally, she was able to knock it into her hand with the tips of her claws (they were useful for many things), almost missed the catch and nearly dropped it. Fast reflexes ensured that it landed safely in her palm.

Peridot had sent a message.

_What is a speculum?_

Jasper huffed and put the communicator down. Peridot had been sending her these sorts of messages all week. Apparently reading report after report on how to extract geodes was beginning to rot her mind.

Another message.

_I need a speculum._

This time, Jasper set the communicator down with a little more force than necessary. Her brows furrowed as she examined the bolts on the platform.

Might need some welding; there was a missing bolt causing the instability. Flat on her back with her head beneath the platform, Jasper examined the problem. A speculum she didn’t have, but she did have welding tools. She wanted the place ready for Pearl’s arrival in just a few short days.

Her communicator blipped again.

 _I also need something to dilate her. The reports say there’s something called a_ metreurynter _?_

These were things Jasper really did not wish to hear about. It was difficult to pinpoint why, exactly. She knew the geode needed to come out eventually—then Pearl would get to leave the Nursery. But Peridot’s constant reminders of what was going to happen made her more agitated. Jasper picked up the communicator and scribbled back a sour message of her own.

_I do not have those things._

Peridot answered in short time.

_Buy them._

Jasper frowned. Her claws tapped against the screen.

_You buy them._

The reply was even quicker this time:

_She is your pearl. Not mine._

Peridot wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t make Jasper feel any better. She grunted her frustration.

_Fine. Give me a list and tell me where to buy them._

This time, it took Peridot longer to answer back.

_They are all antiques. Haven’t made more of these in millennia. I have to ask around..._

With that, Jasper left the communicator on the shelf and went to get her welding tools. Maybe if she returned to making progress on Pearl’s accommodations, she’d feel better.

Jasper didn’t hear back from Peridot until later that night. All she sent was a bulleted list of tools and a map with a single location marked on it. Some small crossroads in Sector 7. Jasper had heard it sometimes referred to as “the Haze District.” Not exactly somewhere a gem of her standing went wandering around. It was a sector that did a very good job at keeping their unsavory dealings from the prying eyes of the Diamonds. She had passed through it on her way to Sectors 8 or 9, once or twice, but never relished in spending time there. Today would be a first.

She sat crunched between an azurite and a nephrite on the shuttle there. Smog pawed at the windows before they even fully passed through Sector 6. It came in heavy gusts and plumes, growing thicker and thicker until the lights of the city were naught but blurry blots.

Jasper was the only gem to get off the shuttle at the platform. The tram rattled away down the track behind her as she stepped into the lift that would take her to street-level.

Times like these, Jasper was glad she was a large and formidable gem. Had a gypsum or a calcite been tasked with traveling through this strange part of the Midnight City, likely they would have run into more trouble than they could handle. Lucky for her that she stood at least a head taller than most of the other gems milling about on the streets. A Diamond’s soldier. No one was likely to bother her.

The map on her communicator led her down busy roads towards the place Peridot had marked. There was no address or shop name to go by. Jasper wondered if this was all just a senseless chase set up by Peridot to annoy her and waste her time. That seemed more likely than anything as Jasper approached the blinking mark on the map.

It was just an alleyway. No sign that indicated there was a shop of any sort. Not even anyone around that looked like they could send her in the right direction. Just a flight of concrete steps that led to a sub-level of the adjacent building. There was a door down there (the only door in sight) with just a console panel, not even a handle. Everything was dark.

She considered calling Peridot. Yelling at her. Telling her to come get these damn “tools” herself and Jasper would just pay her back for them.

She eyed the lone door again. With a sigh, she descended the steps toward it. Wouldn’t hurt to try. If it didn’t work, she had all the more ground to give Peridot a piece of her mind. Debris and gravel crunched beneath her heels as she came to the bottom of the flight.

The console beside the door lit up. Atop the screen was a dark fisheye lens that Jasper recognized as a sort of camera. Someone was likely looking at her now.

When nothing else happened after a moment of waiting, Jasper tried the door. She gave it a push and, to her surprise, it opened.

The room beyond was well-lit compared to the dim and dusky streets of Sector 7. Yellow, artificial lighting cascaded across the modest amount of furniture inside. Sitting behind the counter with her chin propped on both hands was a charoite. She had stunning violet hair that fell into a braid on her shoulder and her eyes were pinned on Jasper as she entered.

Sliding doors lined the far wall and in each doorway stood a pearl. There were at least a dozen of them. Short ones with broad hips and full breasts, taller ones with angular features and lithe frames. Some were incubating, others were not. All naked. Each of them stared with dead eyes.

One of the doors was closed. From somewhere beyond it, Jasper could hear the muffled sounds of a creaking bed frame. Grunting.

So this was where Peridot sent her. A brothel.

Still standing in the doorway, Jasper found she was in too much shock to move further in.

“What can I do for you?” the charoite behind the counter prompted her. Her Cheshire expression was piercing.

In a jolting series of motions Jasper approached the counter. She tried not to listen to the noises coming from behind the closed door—now there were squeals joining the cacophony. Trying to appear natural, Jasper set her communicator onto the counter and turned it around so the charoite could read the list Peridot composed. “I need these things.”

With one finger, the charoite pulled the communicator towards her and began to read the list. She spent a thorough minute analyzing the request. The sound of a bed frame slamming against a wall ticked by the seconds. And then her eyes flicked up. “Is this your first time owning a pearl?”

Jasper felt as though her chest had been pulled open. She could only manage a hushed, “Yes.” Then, “I don’t own her yet. I’m getting her in a couple of days.” Not that it mattered. Jasper didn’t know why she felt the need to add that.

The banging stopped. It went quiet.

“Well good for you. Where’d you get her from?” she asked. “Hard to buy them anymore.”

“Long story,” Jasper said. The knowing look from the charoite revealed that her privacy would be respected. No need to explain how she’d acquired a pearl in an establishment like this, which was far less than legal.

Jasper heard the door behind her open and another gem stepped out. She kept her eyes turned toward the counter, refusing to entertain her morbid curiosity. Whoever this gem was, she certainly didn’t want to get involved with them. Just wanted to buy her tools and leave.

The charoite nodded cordially to the gem who passed behind Jasper to get to the exit and then business continued as normal.

“Wait here. I’ll get you what you need.” The charoite ducked below the counter and began to rummage.

Now the only customer in this bizarre and sordid shop, Jasper felt at liberty enough to look around again. She should have felt ashamed at how quickly her head swiveled back towards the line of pearls all waiting outside their respective doors. Even the one that had been fucked moments prior had hobbled her way back to the threshold. Her thighs were wet as if she had just washed between them. Her tired face was still flushed.

Jasper now noticed each pearl had a collar around her neck and a cage of wire locked around her gem. Regardless of where the gem was on her body, there was a crisscrossing pattern of loose mesh around it that appeared to dig well into her flesh in order to entrap the gemstone from all sides. A long chain bound them to the beds within their respective rooms. They were both protected from damage to their gemstones and tied to their captivity here. Not even vaporizing their forms would allow them freedom from their bonds.

The charoite caught her looking. “They’re 20 for a half hour,” she said, hefting a large metal trunk up onto the counter. “Or 100 if you want to get one of them incubating. Except the one on the left—she’s reserved for another client next week.”

“No,” Jasper hurried to say. “No, I’m not interested.”

She still stared at the pearls. Couldn’t take her eyes off them. Several of them stared right back.

They weren’t alluring or tantalizing. Their bodies didn’t sway and bend in ways that intrigued Jasper. They just looked sad. Defeated. Their skin was mottled and cunts swollen from use. They had a look in their eyes similar to that of Rose Quartz’s pearl after she’d finally given up on the way back from Earth. Jasper didn’t like it. A heavy feeling settled onto her chest that only relented when she reminded herself that she was going to get Pearl out of the Nursery soon and it would all be fine.

It would all be fine. Not for these pearls it wouldn’t, but for her pearl, it would be. That meant something at least.

The charoite set a row of instruments on the counter. Clamps and forceps. A speculum. Some things that Jasper didn’t even want to attempt to identify and none of them looked very friendly. It was an intimidating set, considering how they were meant to be used. The metal was scratched and scuffed. One of the clamp-looking instruments was rusted around the hinge.

Perhaps Peridot was right. Perhaps they hadn’t made these in millennia.

“Do you have one in better shape?” Jasper asked, shoving the rusted clamp back towards the charoite. “Looks busted.”

The charoite said, “This is the best set I’m selling.” She looked eager to continue the transaction and shoved the clamp right back into line. “It’s 2,100. If you want it delivered, it’s 2,110.”

It was like a punch to the gut. For a moment, all Jasper could do was let the numbers flash before her eyes. Egregious numbers. “What? That much?”

“You act like you thought having a pearl was going to be cheap.” The charoite twirled a finger on the counter and watched Jasper with keen interest. “Maybe you should have considered that before you bought an incubating one. I’ve got ways to keep that from happening, by the way, if you’re interested—”

“No.” Jasper was gruff, more than ready to get out of this place. Barely listening to the charoite at this point; she could feel the line of naked pearls along the back wall looking at her. “No, I just want this.”

Still, the price was more than she’d expected. Jasper had a good amount of funds to herself, but she wasn’t exactly well-off. She wasn’t nobility or part of a diamond’s court.

Jasper thought of Pearl. Thought of how she needed these things, as meager and unappealing as they looked. She didn’t have much of a choice. Neither of them did.

“Can you bring it down to 1,500?” she sighed, her voice low, as if she didn’t want the pearls in the room to hear her stoop to bargaining. Like they would judge her for it.

The charoite paused with her finger to her chin. “2,000 even.”

“1,700.”

“1,800,” she said. “And I’ll throw in a tracking collar. No delivery. That’s as low as I can go.” From below the counter, she produced a gold-plated collar that hooked in the front—it matched the ones worn by each pearl in the lineup.

Pearl would look pretty in it, Jasper decided. And that was how she ended up 1,800 credits lighter with a very heavy bundle of metal contraband tucked beneath her arm on the shuttle ride back to her sector. It was worth it, Jasper convinced herself. All of it would be worth it when she finally got to bring Pearl back to her apartment where she’d be safe.

 

* * *

 

It was the middle of the dark hours when Jasper finally arrived back to her apartment. She messaged Peridot, knowing she wouldn’t be quiescent, even at a time like this. She was rarely quiescent.

 _Come over_ , she wrote. _I have the tools for the geode._

 _When?_ Peridot wrote back. Because of course she was awake.

_Now._

Jasper rummaged through her collection while she waited for Peridot to arrive. She found three blankets that would serve as decent bedding for Pearl and a pretty crystalline armband she’d forgotten about. There were a lot of treasures lost to the clutter of her storage system, not that Jasper would ever admit such a thing.

She was attempting to pull a rug out from beneath a large upturned pillar when she heard Peridot announce herself through the intercom. Jasper dusted off her hands and went to let her in.

The moment Jasper laid eyes upon Peridot standing in the doorway, memories of their last encounter rushed back to her full force. It seemed a similar derailment was taking place in Peridot’s mind; she stared up at her with a blank, glassy look in her eyes. It took a couple of beats for Jasper to finally invite her in. Then another couple for Peridot to actually comply.

It happened fast. How exactly it occurred was beyond Jasper’s recollection. She remembered unrolling the bundle of extraction tools out on the table before Peridot. There had been some scolding words traded between the two of them. Typical bickering. Then she remembered a hot mouth wrapped around her finger. A palmful of malleable, tender flesh. There was ripping fabric and the frantic shuffle of feet.

It was surprising how easily they fell into bed together, both eager for each other. Even Jasper was shocked by her own hunger.

Peridot’s cunt was warm and wet on Jasper’s lips. She said “please” when she asked Jasper to use her claws to smack her ass. She said “thank you” afterwards. Proud of what they had accomplished together, she wiggled her welt-ridden backside at Jasper once they were done. In her eyes were the glimmer of tears, but on her mouth was a smile that stretched wide.

The warm radiance of the horizon cast a glow over Jasper’s bed. She remained awake while Peridot lay in facedown quiescence beside her. Jasper thought about Pearl. It was hard not to when the Nursery loomed outside her window, an old relic of a building framed by the glitz and shine of newer architecture. An establishment that well preceded Jasper’s existence. She thought about Rose Quartz. Wondered why she’d left her pearl alone after all they had gone through together with the rebellion.

A call from Lapis was what finally roused Peridot from her rest. Her hair stuck out at odd angles and her lips were still swollen, but that didn’t stop her from boastfully angling her hologram screen so as to capture Jasper’s naked form lounging beneath her.

“You should have been here,” Peridot said. She curled lazily around one of Jasper’s bared breasts. “But _you_ said you didn’t want to come. Said it wouldn’t be a good time at Jasper’s place.”

“I’ll live,” Lapis deadpanned. “But one of your fuel tank modulators is making a really weird noise and flashing red, so I think you might want to come back and fix it.”

Peridot swore and bounded out of bed quicker than Jasper had ever seen her go. She barely remembered to grab the bundle of extraction instruments before swinging herself out of Jasper’s apartment door and into the night.

It was fine. Jasper had other things to do. There were still some corners of her storage room she hadn’t yet scoured for useful things in preparation for Pearl’s arrival in the coming days.

Two days later, Peridot was back to fuck again. Jasper let her in then fucked her so hard she was afraid the amethyst in the apartment above her might hear her trilling cries.

Another two days later when they were wedged in Peridot’s pod together, she tried not to think about those times. They traveled in silence to the Nursery and Jasper’s leg bounced with nervous energy the whole way. It rocked the entire pod, even mid-flight.

“Relax,” Peridot said. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve read, like, fifty reports.”

“I am relaxed,” Jasper said through gritted teeth. She watched the Nursery towers rise before them as they drew closer and half expected those great, outstretched arms to belong to a massive woman waiting just below the surface of concrete and masonry. But the closer they came, the more Jasper noticed the scars of time. The structure was old. Crumbling. Abandoned. Just a building. “Why do they still even have this place?”

Peridot looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. Some place to keep old obsolete pearls, I guess.”

They came to a stop in what used to be the loading bay. Peridot carried the bundle of extraction tools under her arm as she got out of the pod and approached the large bay door. Didn’t even wait for Jasper to squeeze herself out of the small passenger compartment before she was plugging away at the console. “Honestly, you can probably just wait out here,” she said.

“Why?” Jasper grunted, finally pulling her hips free.

“Well it’s not like you’re coming up there with me.” The bay door opened and Peridot slipped inside, doing her damnedest to appear casual even though her fingers were visibly twitching. “It’s not like you need to be there or anything.”

It was an affront to Jasper, though she was having trouble determining exactly why. “I’m not waiting in your small-ass pod.” To prove her point, she lumbered into the darkness of the Nursery before the doors had a chance to shut.

Peridot was less than pleased. There was annoyance furrowed into her face when her gem flickered to life. A cone of light illuminated the dingy hallway before them. “You’re not coming up with me.”

“You keep saying that, but I’m still here. Would you look at that.”

In something that resembled a temper tantrum, Peridot whirled on her and stomped her foot on the ground. A metallic clang echoed up into the heights of the main chamber. The old chandelier above clinked audibly. “You’re not. You’re just going to distract me from my work because you’re going to get grossed out. Because it’s _gross_. There’s going to be goo and blood flying everywhere and she’s probably going to scream or cry and _you’re_ going to get upset and it’s just going to make it difficult, so just _stay down here, you clod_.” She pointed resolutely to a sheet-draped couch. The message was clear. Jasper had to stay.

Begrudgingly, Jasper shuffled over to the couch. Sat down. One of the decrepit springs immediately snapped under her weight. She growled.

“Stay,” Peridot said. She backed up towards the elevator, eyeing Jasper to make sure she didn’t follow.

She didn’t.

Crouched in the dark and empty lobby, Jasper steepled her fingers and waited. Her knee bounced with force. An upturned cabinet a few feet away rattled in time with her anxious ticking.

From overhead, she could hear the murmurs and whispers of the other inhabitants of the Nursery. Peridot had said there were more pearls here. Though Jasper couldn’t see them in the dark, she knew they existed.

When sitting wasn’t enough, Jasper turned to pacing. She paced across a strip of floor so many times that it scuffed millennia of dust from the marble.

It felt like it was taking forever. How long did it take to extract a geode? A couple minutes? An hour? Two hours? Quite frankly, Jasper had no idea. She wished she’d read a few of those reports so she would have at least an inkling of what it was Peridot was doing...

A punctuated scream from overhead made Jasper wince.

Perhaps she didn’t want to know what Peridot was doing.

The scream continued in the darkness. High, raspy, thoroughly frantic. The timbre of it, Jasper realized, did not belong to Pearl—it belonged instead to Peridot. Jasper would have recognized that voice anywhere.

Peridot yelled again. It was unmistakable.

Something had gone wrong. That was all Jasper could conclude at the moment, so she acted with a soldier’s instinct. She bolted to the elevator, slammed her fist into the recall button. It began its slow descent back towards the lobby.

Another scream from above.

There must have been trouble up there. Perhaps Peridot had forgotten that the pearl they were dealing with was a self-trained warrior who was not to be underestimated. Did she not remember their battle on the beach? Incubating or not, she was certain Pearl could still wield a spear with grace and power. Peridot would likely trip over her own two feet before she managed to work her own built-in laser cannon. Truly useless.

The elevator touched down. Jasper ripped a dusty sheet off a nearby couch before she stepped aboard—something to restrain Pearl with if she was going to put up a fight. Unlike Peridot, she wasn’t going to assume this pearl was docile today. Jasper twisted the fabric between her fists as she examined the extensive panel before her.  An incredible number of floor options were laid out before her in rows, but only one button wasn’t laden in dust: twenty-seventh floor. She jammed her thumb against it and the elevator lurched to life again.

“Fuck,” Jasper murmured as Peridot’s screams grew closer with every floor she ascended. The sheet in her hands was wrung into a rope, perfect for restraint. Hearty enough to withstand a fight, but soft enough so as to not hurt Pearl. Jasper didn’t want to hurt her.

The elevator doors opened on the twenty-seventh floor. It was dark; the cell blocks extended in either direction, yet Jasper had no idea which way to go. She supposed she would have to follow the sounds of distress and hope she was in the right place.

A gasp to her right made her pivot around.

There, in the far corner of a cell, was a pearl. Small, thin. She cowered behind the rusty scaffolding of a gurney, her breaths coming in short puffs. Jasper locked eyes with her for a moment, hesitated. She didn’t know why. It was just a pearl. One of the many she’d seen lately. They all had this look in their eyes...

She journeyed through the dimly lit corridor. There was an empty cell, then another one containing a pearl. She squealed in fear the moment she saw her.

Jasper kept walking, head down.

Almost tripped over a fragmented pearl. Half of her shard’s attempts at a body were writhing in the hallway, the other half trapped inside a cell. She curled her lip at the sight of it. It would be for the best if she just stepped on it, put it out of its aimless misery—

“ _Oh, fuck!_ ” It was Peridot’s voice that jolted Jasper back into action. She had to move.

Another pearl trembled in the wake of her footsteps. Almost every cell she passed contained a pearl that took one look at her and scurried as far from her as possible. Like they were scared of her. Every single one.

Why? Why such a visceral reaction to her? Jasper wondered.

“ _Hello? Hello?_ ” A pearl whispered from where she curled at the back of her cell. Nothing but a drone. Sounds murmured into the night.

“Ugh. Ew!” Peridot’s voice echoed from the next cell over.

Makeshift rope clutched in her hands, Jasper rounded the corner, ready for a fight. But what she saw there was not a struggle.

Peridot knelt on the floor at the end of the gurney, holding a slippery looking geode in both hands. It was coated with a thick, iridescent lubrication that splattered liberally over her prosthetics and visor. It pooled on the gurney between Pearl’s thighs. The collection of metal instruments lay scattered haphazardly about—some looked used, while others seemed untouched.

Knees still hiked up and spread apart, Pearl lay on her back. She looked unfocused and exhausted, yet she was stoically silent.

“What were you screaming about?” Jasper demanded and leaned over Peridot.

There was a hoarse yelp from Peridot as she twisted around, startled. She looked unhinged and a little ashen. “W-what? _Jasper, I told you to stay_ —!”

Jasper was more than sick of her protest. “You were screaming, so I came up here. I thought you were being attacked you were so damn loud.”

“I was what?” Peridot wavered. “Was I really?”

“You were,” Jasper said.

“She was.”

Jasper’s head snapped up when Pearl spoke. It was but a whisper, so frail that she thought she could be imagining things. But Pearl gazed back readily, chapped lips parted.

“She was screaming,” Pearl breathed. “The first time...it’s always the hardest.”

Was that intended to be a mockery? Jasper couldn’t be sure. Would have been impressed if it was.

“Get up,” Jasper scoffed at Peridot. She nudged at her hip with the side of her boot. “You act like you were the one who had that thing pulled out of you. Get up. Stars.”

While Peridot battled with the hazardously slippery floor in her attempt to get back onto her feet, Jasper unrolled the sheet in her fists. It was crinkled and dirty. Nothing impressive. She wished she had brought something better as she approached Pearl’s side. Maybe one of those many blankets Jasper had pulled out of storage would have been more appropriate.

Those blue eyes watched her the whole time. They were sharp. Intelligent. Yes, Pearl was tired, but she was not defeated. “Why are you here?” she asked.

Jasper realized that she’d never been told what was going to happen. Felt bad for it. “I’m taking you away.” With a flick of her arms, she draped the sheet over Pearl. It fell over the contours of her body with all the soft grace of the setting sun. The sweat beading upon Pearl’s forehead was like liquid silver wreathing her gem. It was beautiful. It was difficult for Jasper to think about all she had been through these last few weeks when looking at her now.

Yes, she was taking her away. Somewhere better.

With that seed of hope in mind, Jasper reached out with both arms and gathered Pearl’s body to her. Tried to wrap the sheet all the way around her frame as best she could, lifted her off that soiled gurney.

“I’ve got you,” Jasper felt the need to reassure as she adjusted her grip.

“I know,” Pearl said.

Peridot was still desperately clutching at the geode. It was precariously wedged between mechanical fingers that didn’t look suited to handle something so round and slippery. The geode was very plain—more or less an even sphere with rippling patterns around the outside imprinted from the walls of Pearl’s womb. There were a few clusters of rusty specks on the surface. Iron veins. Made sense, considering who had helped make the thing. The heated stone steamed in the cool Nursery air. “What do you think it’s going to be?” Peridot asked.

“Dunno,” Jasper said as she pushed aside the iron door with her shoulder. “Process it and find out.”

A geode meant nothing to Jasper. As it stood, it was but a potential for a gem. An antique way of making gems, at that. There was no such thing as mother or child. No relationships like that existed on Homeworld. And so, to Jasper, the geode in Peridot’s hands was but a hunk of rock that had caused quite a bit of trouble for her already. Now that it was out of her pearl, what happened to it was inconsequential.

The journey back was hazy in Jasper’s memory. The world revolved around the weight cradled in her arms and the damp, filmy cloth clinging to her fingers. The shutter of her mind opened only to the sight of Pearl’s upturned face staring back at her. Dust and rust lingered on a damp spot upon her flushed cheek—had she been crying? Jasper rubbed a thumb unconsciously across that spot to wipe it away. Didn’t even notice she was staring at her. Every revolution brought her right back to Pearl. She couldn’t pull away.

Jasper had lost track of the number of times she had carried a wounded comrade off the battlefield in her arms. Cracked, corrupting, not quite dead but on the brink. She had to choose only one solider to save whilst other lost souls writhed and cried on the ground all around. The ones she left behind. They peered up at her from beneath their helms; they peered out at her from behind iron bars. All her guilt kept her fixated on the one in her arms because it was the only way she could get to safety without crumbling. It felt like all those times all over again.

At least she could save one.

Couldn’t save them all, they’d told her.  

The lift creaked and groaned as it bore the weight of three gems and a geode back to the lobby.

The pod was cramped. Jasper’s knees were bent and her elbows tucked in. Pearl pressed up against her chest, her body falling into the dip Jasper formed when she doubled over. Every breath she took brought a misty inhale against her tongue. The air tasted heavy with minerals. Bitter and metallic, like the spray of a heated geyser. The scent of a pearl after geode extraction. 

Pearl’s toes pressed up against the widow. Jasper stared at them.

“Are you going to be able to get her up to your place like that?” Peridot asked. She glanced over at the both of them, her arms outstretched toward the control panel. The geode was in the crux of her lap to keep it from rolling as they hovered through the streets of the city.

“No,” Jasper said. “I don’t want them to see her. Don’t want to risk it.”

She didn’t want any of the other quartzes in her building to know she had a pearl. It could be dangerous. Jasper now had ownership of something that another quartz might challenge her for. A pearl would be coveted indeed. Best they remained oblivious for now.

“I’ll take you up, then.”

The pod began to ascend above street level. Windows and metal beams flew by them. Peridot counted under her breath.

“Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two...”

Their ascent slowed as Peridot managed to sidle the pod right up against the balcony to Jasper’s apartment. They were a dizzying thirty-some floors above when the door to the passenger’s side unlocked and swung open.

“I’ve got you,” Jasper reassured as she stepped over the gap to the other side of the railing.

Pearl said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the sky above.

With a mock salute in Jasper’s direction—a rather cheeky gesture, which would not have gone over well had they been on an actual mission together—Peridot shut the door behind them and zipped out of sight.

What an idiot.                                                

The apartment was dark, but Jasper knew her way well enough to sidestep the furniture and even the overturned bag of supplies she had yet to put away since her last mission. She was careful, ever-mindful of the pearl in her arms. It would be disastrous if she tripped.

Without a sky to stare at, Pearl looked around instead. Her eyes scanned the hallway and into the rooms they passed. “Is this where you live?” she said.

“Yeah,” Jasper said. “I’m gonna, I’m gonna keep you here.”

“Why?”

Jasper had no answer to that. None that sounded logical, anyway. She had no definitive reason, just...a feeling. A feeling like she should. She ought to.

More clutter blocked her path as she stepped into her storage room. She’d forgotten to shove a stack of boxes back into place before she’d left that morning. Really, the whole room was a mess with all the scavenging she’d done to try and find nice things for Pearl. But in the end, she’d managed at least something—a small cot-like platform up against the window. Several different colors and styles of blankets draped across it. A patchwork-looking collection of items from different solar systems and planets in Jasper’s travels. She was pleased with it, regardless. “Here,” she said as she placed Pearl gingerly upon the cot. “I made you this. You can stay here.”

Pearl fit perfectly upon the cot and Jasper was proud of herself. Eagerly, she nudged a swath of blankets up against her side. That was when she noticed the somewhat distant, shifty look in Pearl’s eyes. Her arms were crossed over her chest, hugging that sheet close to her body.

Doubt began to seep between the cracks of her confidence. “I uh...I know it’s not much.” Jasper sat back on her haunches, rubbed at the back of her neck. “I know it’s not as much as you had before. On Earth...”

Fuck. Jasper winced at her own mention of the place, already bringing it up.

It made her remember the battle on Earth. Made her remember interrogation. The victorious journey back. It made her remember all those things she didn’t want to remember right now.

“Why am I here?” Pearl asked again.

Jasper had held enough prisoners captive to know what she was really asking. It almost winded her. She had to look Pearl in the eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “This isn’t like that.”

Pearl visibly slumped as her tension eased. She looked drained, and of course she was. She must have been exhausted from that geode extraction. Probably didn’t help that she had to spend more than fifteen minutes in a small cramped cell with Peridot. That would exhaust even the most hardened of warriors.

“You can rest,” Jasper said, pushing herself onto her feet. “Rest as long as you need to. I’ll be around.”

She turned to leave, had already reached the doorway when she heard Pearl’s hushed voice, so soft she could barely make it out.

“Thank you.”

It gave Jasper pause. She resisted the urge to turn back around. With a single nod of her head, she left.

Those two words came with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A BIG thank you to my betas:
> 
> @superlunarloser on Tumblr
> 
> @tat-buns on Tumblr
> 
> Zoey


	11. Chapter 11

Pearl woke up tangled in an excessive pile of mismatching blankets. The last vestiges of her dreams were still projected on the window before her—a hologram of a scene from Earth. A cherry tree in full blossom. A figure sitting beneath it.

She blinked and the projection disappeared, leaving her with nothing but the view from the window. The Midnight City sprawled towards the horizon and, in the distance, she could see the Nursery framed in lunar light.

It all rushed back to her. The ache that still gnawed at her womb was not a mystery. The smell of dust and rot clinging to her skin was a mark of her captivity. She remembered that she had escaped the clutches of the Nursery for the second harrowing time in her life, carried to freedom in the arms of the gem that dragged her back there in the first place.

It all felt like a confusing mix of relief and caged pessimism and none of it made much sense.

Pearl turned her head to take in the rest of the room. Even in the dark, she could see that it was littered with odds and ends. It did not take long for her to realize that she was in some sort of storage room.

How typical.

Her gaze darted from stack of boxes to a pile of scrap and finally to the open doorway. Dusk lay beyond the threshold. Pearl could see out into the hall and into the doorway of the room across the way. If she hadn’t been lingering there, she might have missed the pair of yellow, glowing eyes staring at her from the dark.

Had she been less exhausted and sore, she might have jumped or screamed or drawn a weapon. Today, however, Pearl had no energy to do any of that. She simply called out in a whisper, “Jasper.”

The eyes disappeared at once, ducking behind the doorframe.

Pearl almost laughed. This was not the first time she’d caught Jasper watching her. So she waited.

Sure enough, a single eye appeared once more. Slowly, but steadily. Unmistakable and vibrant.

“I can see you, you know.” Pearl breathed. A chuckle somehow escaped.

Jasper flinched back into hiding once more, but not for long. This time, she seemed to realize that it was doing her no good. And so, with much hesitation, she moved into the light. She parted the void as she took one step forward, then another, and crossed the distance until she stood framed in the doorway to the room.

Pearl waited.

“How do you always see me?” Jasper asked. She squinted, skeptical.

“Your eyes,” Pearl said. “They glow.”

Jasper took another step. The distance between them closed.

Somehow, Pearl failed to feel threatened by her approach. She was prone, sore, naked beneath the blankets, and yet she looked up at her towering visitor without fear. Unapologetic for any of it.

And then Jasper came to kneel beside the cot. Like a warrior bending to her maiden. A knight coming to bow before their lord. No longer did Pearl have to look up to meet her eyes. She couldn’t recall ever having that privilege with Jasper before.

“Are you comfortable?” Jasper asked.

“I...” Pearl didn’t know how to respond to that at first. “I suppose.”

For a moment, the two of them regarded each other. There was a chasm between them. Somewhere between their battle as enemies and their primal conjugation as tepid lovers there was a gap that needed closing and it seemed neither of them really knew how to do it. Pearl didn’t even know if she wanted to.

Jasper wanted to try. “I made this for you,” she said, setting her hand upon the corner of the cot.

“I know. You told me.”

“Oh.” Jasper seemed discouraged for a moment. Then she perked up, as if a thought occurred to her. She turned and reached toward a nearby shelf to pick up something small, white, iridescent. “But have you seen this?” In her palm, Jasper presented a simple seashell.

From the way she extended it toward her, Pearl got the sense that this was something she wanted her to take. And so she reached out and accepted the shell.

“It’s from Earth,” Jasper announced. “I brought it back with me.”

The shell was lovely. Unmarred, without a crack or scratch, as if perhaps Jasper had taken the time to hunt through the many that littered the beach to find the best one. Where it had been dwarfed in Jasper’s grasp, Pearl found that it was a large specimen, one that justified using two hands to hold.

“Yes,” she said, turning it over to observe the inner nacre. “There are many of these on Earth.”

“Many?” Jasper said. “How many?”

A number didn’t immediately spring to her mind. Pearl shrugged a thin shoulder. It poked up from beneath the blankets. “As many as there are stars in the sky.”

Jasper seemed to consider this statement. She nodded sagely. “That is surprising.”

“Earth is full of surprises. And full of beauty.”

“Is that why you fought so hard to protect it?”

A slew of bad memories came rushing back. Pearl remembered the smell of burning sand. Hearing Amethyst curse with human expletives as she sized herself up against Jasper’s prowess and found herself lacking. She remembered the whirr of her spear as she tried to pin Peridot down and use her as ransom, only to be warded off by metal limbs and hastily-established force fields. Remembered constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure Steven wasn’t there to see. She didn’t want him to see any of it, especially not when Jasper finally grabbed Garnet by the throat and shook her. Or the moment when Pearl willingly relinquished her spear out of desperation when there was no other choice.

The faraway stare in Pearl’s eyes must have triggered something in Jasper. Perhaps she knew far too well the look of a soldier recalling past battles, for she was quick to turn and find another trinket in the vast stockade.

“Look,” she said as she crouched back down to Pearl’s side. “Look at this.” Hopefully, she thrust a small, carved figurine toward her.

It broke Pearl’s daze. She set the seashell down to accept this new bauble, though was unsure of what to do with it.

“I got it from a planet I was on a few missions back,” Jasper explained. She watched Pearl intently, scouring her expression for any sign of approval. “It was made by the inhabitants there. A couple other jaspers fought me for it, but I won.”

Pearl examined it. It was carved from some sort of mineral, depicting a portrait of the species that had created it. There was clearly a face of some sort, some spines, and limbs. Somewhat crude compared to the craftsmanship Pearl had seen on other planets, but she didn’t want to point that out to Jasper who seemed to be awaiting her impression.

“You must be very strong,” she said, “to win a fight with several others of your kind.”

Jasper appeared stunned for a moment, her eyebrows climbed up somewhere beneath the volume of hair that framed her face. And then she had the audacity to look extremely smug. “Yeah, I’ve been known to bash a few heads in.” She remembered something, stopped. Then stood up to fetch something else from the far corner of the room. “Oh, here. Let me show you this other thing...”

So Pearl set the figurine in her lap next to the seashell to make room for yet another item. This time, a hatchet. It was not very large, not something that a quartz would be able to wield in battle except maybe as a joke. The hilt was made of something distinctly reminiscent of wood, yet not at all similar.

“I won this a long time ago. A few millennia or so.” She adjusted her posture so that Pearl could not help but notice when she flexed. “Arm wrestling.”

It was too much. Pearl tried to scoff to mask her laughter, but was unsuccessful. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, but that failed to do her much good, either. Jasper was already soaking it up. Pearl had never seen her smile so wide. So _genuine_. There were creases in her cheeks Pearl hadn’t noticed before. Soon she was up and fetching yet another bauble.

“You’re going to love this thing. I don’t know what it’s for, but I like looking at it,” she called from where she was dumping a trunk full of items on the ground. Out poured a mound of clutter and dust. What caught Jasper’s eye was a shimmering, egg-like marble that rolled free. Whatever it was, it distracted her from her original victim and she all but pounced upon it to scoop it up. It scattered rainbows when she held it up to the light. “I forgot I had this.”

The rainbows danced on Pearl’s face, reflected off her gem in a most alluring way. Jasper spent a moment staring with lips parted before she approached again, marble egg outstretched. “Look at this,” she said.

The closer it came to Pearl’s face, the more the light swayed and twirled. And when she held it in her hands, her skin glowed like a galaxy in its death throes. Solar flares and nova colors.

Pearl looked up. She finally began to take in the enormity of the contents of this room: all the trunks brimming with everything from the mundane to the priceless and the lopsided shelves bowing and encumbered under the weight of their stock. All of this in what amounted to a fairly small room. “What is all this?” she asked. “You have so much of it.”

“This?” Jasper looked behind her as if it wasn’t already obvious what Pearl was referring to. “These are all the things I brought back from missions. I’ve been to a lot of places. Solar systems, planets. Even a couple different galaxies.”

“So these are just things you brought back?” Pearl spoke slowly. She regarded Jasper from beneath skeptically quirked brows.

“Yeah, pretty much.”

It confirmed her suspicions. “You’re a hoarder!”

“What?” Jasper’s lip curled, clearly a little offended. “No I’m not. It’s collecting, not hoarding.”

Pearl couldn’t help but laugh. There was something charming about a warrior of her caliber being so put off by something so benign. “I lived with a hoarder for almost five thousand years. I know one when I see one.”

Jasper appeared confused. The skin around her gem wrinkled.

“The amethyst,” Pearl explained. She lowered her gaze to the marble egg still shimmering away in her hands. Her voice became soft. “Amethyst did the same thing. Stowed away everything and anything she could find. She had no idea of all that she had, but she loved every bit of it. Terrible and messy hoarder. But I’m starting to understand why she found these little memories so important.”

“Well, these are all important. They’re souvenirs. There’s even treasure in here. Trophies, too.” Jasper paused, a finger to her lower lip. She appeared to be mulling over something long and hard. Then she came to kneel beside the cot again, leaning in so close that Pearl could smell the iron of her skin. “My favorite trophy,” she said, “I brought back from Earth.”

It was Pearl’s turn to be puzzled. “Oh?”

As if all the romance in the universe could be wrapped up into a single syllable, Jasper whispered, “You.”

The moment was drained of all charm in that word, a blaring but perverse reminder of what Pearl was really doing here. Not for diplomacy or rescue, not for purpose or pressing need, but as a representation of Homeworld’s dominion over Earth. She had been brought back to Homeworld as an example of their continued power over the Crystal Gems now that Rose Quartz had abandoned them and nothing more.

Trophy.

Thing.

Nothing more than a shiny toy to keep in Jasper’s storage room to collect dust.  It was what all pearls were for, in the end. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t this what Homeworld taught?

Shock turned to disgust. Disgust turned to indignation. Indignation to anger. It all played out plain on Pearl’s face, a concerto in revulsion.  “Is that really what you think of me?”

Suddenly Jasper did not seem eight feet tall. She was shrinking by the second and the expression on her face revealed that she knew it. With a lot less confidence, she offered, “I mean, you’re more than a—a blanket or something. You’re special.”

Pearl could only stare. Icy, stiff. “I’m more than a blanket,” she stated.

“I didn’t mean it like—” Jasper backpedaled with hands held out in front of her, but Pearl cut her off.

“I am _much_ more than a blanket. Or a trophy.” Her voice quivered and pitched. She began to sit up, the covers falling away from her shoulders and chest to flash bare breasts for a second only before her clothing sealed around her in a swathe of light once more. She bore her star. Rose’s star. She saw Jasper’s eyes flicker to it and saw the pinched expression that revealed her aversion.

Perhaps the star was why Jasper seemed to prefer her naked.

Perhaps there were other reasons, too.

“You want to know why I stayed with Rose Quartz? Why I followed her?” Pearl said. Her hands were clenched into fists, pinned to her sides. “Because she treated me like I had value and worth. She made me feel like I mattered. She didn’t treat me like a trophy, Jasper. I made the choice to follow her. Me. Not the pearl part of me, but the part of me that loved her with everything because she taught me I could be more.” Her breath rushed out of her. She’d been holding it in for too long. “I am more.”

Silence from Jasper. She stared at Pearl with wide eyes; she seemed almost wary of her.

Unpredictable, renegade pearl.

When there was nothing more to battle against, Pearl crossed her arms and slumped back down against the cot. She turned her head to look out the window with so much bottled up tension that it exhausted her. She was too drained to do much else.

It was a long time before Jasper spoke again. “The star,” Jasper murmured.

Pearl was annoyed. “What about it?”

“Yellow Diamond has instructed me to have you reform. You shouldn’t be wearing that. You’re on Homeworld now,” she said. “You belong to me. And I belong to Yellow Diamond.”

Pearl wondered if anything she just said got through to Jasper. She appraised her with condemnation in her eyes, noting the way she had taken several steps back from the cot and stood with a soldier’s practiced rigidity. Jasper’s expression was not cold, however. In fact, it was anything but. She looked almost worried, as her brow was buckled in the middle and her lower lip was drawn inwards. Subtle, but telling. She had lost her boastful confidence and bullheaded conviction. Jasper said words now because she had to say them, not because she wanted to. And so Pearl relented. “Fine. Vaporize me.”

Jasper did not relish in her victory. She turned to leave. “I’ll get Peridot, then.”

She did call Peridot. Pearl heard her murmuring something into her communicator in the room over, but couldn’t make out what was being said. She sat with her knees pressed up against her ribcage and waited.

In the time it took for Peridot to arrive, Jasper did not try to speak to Pearl again. They remained in their separate rooms, quiet, alone together. Things were very still in the apartment until the intercom sparked to life.

“ _Jasper!_ ” The audio crackled. “ _Jasper, I brought my own destabilizer. Jasper. Jasper, let me in._ ”

Peridot had indeed brought her own destabilizer. She brandished it in the hallway for Jasper to see—it was nearly as long as her arm. Pity it hadn’t been turned on yet, because Peridot promptly dropped it, caught it by the wrong end, and then dropped it again.

Jasper looked embarrassed on her behalf. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Of course,” Peridot said. “And then, since I’m already over here, maybe we can—”

“Not now.” Jasper looked focused, grim. She placed her hand on the doorway to Pearl’s room to lean inside and say, “It’s time. Let’s do it.”

Pearl uncurled herself from the cot. Blankets slumped onto the floor as she sat on the edge for a moment to collect her thoughts. Just a short destabilization. She’d come back soon. To what benefit, she didn’t know, because as far as Pearl knew, she would just wake up back in this apartment with no purpose but to serve as a war trophy. But she would reform and perhaps make a purpose for herself as she often did. It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last.

Besides. Reforming was the quickest way to rid herself of the ache in her womb.

The cot creaked as she stood up. Her head was held high as she left the cot behind.

“Just stand here,” Jasper directed her. “It will go fast.”

Pearl came to stand against the wall, hands folded in front of her. She looked up at Jasper, something accusing in her eyes. It was a look worth a thousand words.

With a leer, Peridot twirled the destabilizer in her fingers. “Don’t worry. I calibrated this one just for you, Pearl. It won’t hurt. You won’t feel a thing.”

That expression on Peridot’s face grated; the smug curl to her lips, her half-lidded eyes tinted green behind her visor. She stood too close to Jasper’s side and tried too hard to tilt her hips.

“Just try not to faint this time. You weren’t in your best form in the Nursery,” Pearl said. She knew it was petty but didn’t care.

The last thing Pearl saw was the destabilizer swinging right toward her head.

A plume of smoke and vapor filled the hall and blinded both Jasper and Peridot. Pearl’s gem, suddenly a vulnerable, solitary thing, spun in the air where her head had once been. It puttered to a stop and then plunged.

Jasper was ready for it. She reached through the vapor and the gem dropped safely into her palm.

Haze dissipated to reveal Peridot clenching the sparking destabilizer a little too firmly. “You need to teach her not to talk back,” she mumbled. “She’s annoying.”

Jasper stared at Pearl’s gem. It was elongated and smooth. Beneath the shine lay a distinct iridescence that reminded her of the marble egg she had shown her earlier. All rainbows and glitz. A pearl’s natural orient. There was a ring around it which Jasper had never seen before, probably because it resided within her form most of the time. But it was a nice detail Jasper appreciated. Her thumb brushed over the surface and found it to still be quite warm.

“I don’t understand why you couldn’t just do it yourself,” Peridot said. She eyed the gem in Jasper’s hands accusingly. “You have your own destabilizer.”

There were many reasons. Reasons Jasper did not fully understand and wouldn’t have vocalized even if she did. One of the reasons was the feeling of wanting to cup her hand around the gem in her possession to protect it from the rest of the universe. Like if she closed around it and sealed the gaps between her fingers so nothing could get in, then everything would be alright.

Everything was not alright, however. She remembered the way Pearl looked at her before she was destabilized and the way she had looked at her when Jasper tried to express her draw. How she’d recoiled like she’d been stung. Jasper wanted Pearl to know that she was a special pearl, a treasured pearl. The desired effect, however, had not been achieved today and Jasper knew that she had done wrong, but wasn’t sure exactly how. Even after a long reflection, she wasn’t sure where she had offended.

Her brows furrowed and her lips softened from a grim line into a pout.

Unimpressed, Peridot scoffed. “Look, I know you get all soft and mushy around her. But it’s getting awkward seeing you like that,” she said. “You’re a _quartz_ gem. Don’t make me ask to be reassigned because you can’t destabilize one single pearl on your own.”

The insult was enough to have Jasper’s full attention. The hollow of her belly ignited in fire to replace sodden disappointment; she lashed out like any quartz gem would when threatened with softness. It was like a switch was thrown somewhere inside her brain that made her see red. “I’ll destabilize _you_.”

Ferocious and unexpected. It made Peridot step back, clutching the destabilizer to her chest. But then she smiled, wicked and genuine. “That’s the Jasper I know and am irrevocably assigned to,” she crooned. Her hips tilted in what was probably an attempt to seduce. “So since I’m here already, what do you say we engage in our new and exciting copulation routine? Lazuli said she’d watch this time.”

Jasper grunted. No commitment from her.

The lack of enthusiasm only prompted Peridot to hook a hand around Jaspers elbow. “Come on. Show me what a big and virile soldier you are. Throw me around. Toughen up a bit, will you?”

In the end, Peridot got her way.

At the very least, it took Jasper’s mind off Pearl for a while. The defenseless, pristine gemstone lay alone in a swathe of blankets on the cot while Jasper pinned Peridot to the bed in the next room over.

The hologram screen and camera were propped up on a nearby shelf for Lapis. Somewhere miles away she lay on her belly, watching. She rested her chin on her hands and kicked her feet as if she was observing something as mundane as a construction project. “Put another finger in her,” she suggested. “No, her other hole.”

Peridot purred as Jasper slipped another finger into her ass. Two in her ass, two in her cunt. Just the way she liked it. She looked over her shoulder to make sure the camera was catching an exquisite view of her backside.

It was a good distraction, if nothing else, Jasper decided. She lost herself in the cyanide of Peridot’s flesh and the serene, languid orders from Lapis.

Afterwards when the bed was mussed and the camera had been turned off, Jasper found the distraction no longer worked. She lay awake and thought about Pearl.

Things didn’t get better when Peridot rose from her quiescence.

“It was like...like...a black hole opening up before me,” Peridot said. “A black hole leading to somewhere between the twelfth or thirteenth dimensions. Except it was oozing everywhere. An oozing black hole and then there was the blood. Stars, Jasper, the blood.”

Jasper stared up at the ceiling. She was frowning deeply. “I don’t want to hear about it.”

“But I haven’t gotten to the best part yet! The geode was like a massive, uh—”

“Peridot.”

“—a massive asteroid squeezing its way out through the crater, and just when I thought it couldn’t get bigger, it gaped open like a—”

Jasper grabbed Peridot, tucked her under one arm, and carried her to the front door. She put her out into her building’s breezeway like tossing out an unruly cat. Still naked and screeching, Peridot tried to run back in before Jasper could close the door in her face, but wasn’t quick enough.

If she was smart, she’d form clothing and go back to her own place for the evening.

Jasper kept a close eye on Pearl’s gem. It sat for days without any hint of regeneration.

“She probably doesn’t even want to come out,” Peridot said one afternoon because it annoyed her that Jasper kept leaving her side to check on it. “She knows once she does, she’ll just end up on your cock again.”

The rumble of Jasper’s growl was enough to shake the bed, and so Peridot never made mention of such ideas again.

It wasn’t going to be like that, Jasper decided. Her pearl would not end up like the lonely, neglected ones she’d seen in the Nursery, or the haggard ones in the brothel that were too used to being fucked to do a damn thing about it. And she didn’t want her pearl to be like Yellow Diamond’s champagne-colored tart, either. Whenever she thought about _her_ pearl, Jasper thought about how strong those slender, long legs were as they struck out against the sand of the beach, or the way her voice was shrill but resolute. How she twirled her spear like she invented the art of sojutsu. Pearl looked proud at those times. Proud and independent and fierce.

The thoughts lived at the forefront of Jasper’s mind, and yet she didn’t know what to do about them. Feeling this way about a pearl—about any gem—would probably only lead her to trouble.

She had seen other gems fight and struggle. She’d seen the determination in their eyes. So why was this pearl different?

Maybe Yellow Diamond was right and Jasper really was willing to sacrifice everything for the chance to stick her cock in Pearl again.

Maybe she was very wrong.

Jasper thought about Pearl’s breasts and plunged her fingers into the folds of her cunt late at night when Peridot was finally sated and had gone back to her own apartment. For, no matter how many times they engaged in coitus, Jasper found she still felt hungry for something. Something Peridot did not provide for her. She did not know what it was, and so she chased it, orgasm after orgasm, in futility.

 

* * *

 

It was not unusual for Pearl to take her time regenerating. But now, forced to strip herself of Rose’s star and align herself as a mere pearl on Homeworld once more, it was even more difficult to expedite her regeneration. At every turn, she was reminded, reminded...

She was made to be looked at.

She was created to entertain. To breed.

No speaking, no interrupting.

Treasured trinket at best, disposable toy at worst.

She had to look the part. And if her skin could be her armor, then she did not mind showing it. If her vulnerability was what they desired, then she would have to lay a snare at the entryway to trap those who dared cross her threshold. Rebellion still stitched into her heart in the form of a single star on the inside of her vestment where fabric met chest.

Light pierced the crevices of the storage room as Pearl’s gem began to glow. For a moment, she was her very own star as the energy inside generated living heat and churned nearby atoms together. Particles skittered and wove themselves into sheets, tangible material. Skin, hair, fabric. A well-programed gem knew how to make all these things and arranged them well in accordance with the blueprint it knew.

Pearl landed on her feet, her fall muffled by blankets strewn on the floor. Her light dimmed from the room, leaving her in the dark. Alone.

She looked down at herself and was immediately jarred by the sight of her bare sternum. Her dress was scant—it plunged down to right above her navel, exposing her ribs and cleft between her breasts. Her back was open, too, bared in the shape of a diamond. She fidgeted with the hem at her thighs and attempted to bring it down far enough to meet the top of her stockings, but it was no use. Pearl scoffed.

Almost immediately, another sound answered her. It was a moan. Long, drawn-out, somewhat distant.

Jasper had to be nearby, then. Pearl thought nothing of the nature of the sound, only that it meant she was not alone. She ventured to the door and poked her head out into the hall.

A rhythmic, wet noise echoed. _Slap, slap, slap_...

“Yes, yes, yes— _fuck!_ ”

The obscene realization dawned on Pearl once she heard the creak of a bed. Her neck went hot.

“ _C’mon, fuck your cum into me..._ ”

It was Peridot’s voice. Lewd words and suggestions grated out from between her sharp little teeth in a way that made Pearl wish she had skewered her on her spear when she’d had her chance.  It was as much arsenic as it was a lure, and so Pearl pressed her back against the wall and listened to ragged breathing from the other room with a hushed, morbid curiosity of her own.

Jasper and Peridot never got along, as far as she was aware. Pearl had seen them bicker and fight, exact petty revenge upon each other. Peridot was cruel while Jasper was equally brutish. They couldn’t be fucking. _Wouldn’t_ be fucking. The idea was absurd. And yet, when Pearl peered into the room, she saw just that.

Sprawled on her back with legs spread, Jasper grunted breathily as Peridot rode atop her. Claws dug into Peridot’s well-bruised buttocks and spread her open to make room for the girth that stuffed her ass until it was a magnificent royal blue ring brimming with that ochre prick. The smooth jolt of their bodies was waylaid by the rungs on the underside of Jasper’s cock which pulled greedily at Peridot’s hole and made her squirm every time she was lifted, only to grind herself back down. Her spine was serpentine as she undulated in a sultry dance.

It was the sound of their bodies that Pearl had been hearing. Every time Peridot slammed herself down, the backs of her thighs slapped agaist Jasper’s hips. Yes, it marked their rhythm. Pushing, competitive, no room for thought or finesse.

And then there was Jasper. Pearl couldn’t see her face from where she stood, but she could see the glossy split of her labia where her cock breeched. The lips folded around the base with a snug, sealed embrace until the only evidence of her cunt was the clear pearls of fluid that leaked from her. Her cock simply took up too much of it when it everted.

Pearl remembered vividly the heat of that length, all the way from tip to base. She empathized with the shudders from Peridot every time those ridges sent a bolt of pleasure through her body, enough to make her mechanical fingers twitch erratically.

She remembered, she remembered.

Iron scent, soft white hair caught in the spaces between her fingers, firm shoulders.

Grunts and heat and the feeling of sharp teeth against her jaw.

“ _Give it to me, give it to me_ —”

Jasper’s belly was more voluptuous than usual, all gravid with cum and fit to burst every time Peridot slammed her full weight down in an effort to tap the well that was already straining.

It was the moment that Jasper pulled Peridot down onto her cock and didn’t let go that Pearl finally pulled back around the corner. Her hand flew to her mouth to keep herself silent as the groans grew louder. Peridot cursed profusely when she yelped encouragement. The bed frame complained as Jasper arched.

Pearl listened to the whole thing. Even though she stared into a dark corner of the hall now, she could still see them in her mind. The way Peridot writhed. The way the muscles in Jasper’s thighs trembled.

A minute later, Peridot came with a shrill noise.

Pearl tried to catch her breath.

It ought to have been none of her business. None at all. And yet it felt like it was, but Pearl found she didn’t know whether she was offended or disgusted or curious or inexplicably—

Her face was flushed blue and her hands were cold.

This must have been something brought on by having a geode so recently. That was it, of course. The geode process must have stimulated something in her that turned her base instinct right back to its most purposeless and degrading level. She’d been without it for so many years that she’d forgotten what the need to breed felt like, though Pearl could swear in that moment that it felt remarkably like—

Everything was quiet, she noticed. The shrieking and slamming and huffing had died down. The rustle of bedsheets took its place.

Perhaps, Pearl mused, she should have made her way back into the storage room while there was plenty of noise to cover her footsteps. Even the softest of footfalls would emit decibels comparable to that of a nuclear explosion. Or, at least, such was the plight in Pearl’s mind.

“Get that off me, I don’t want cum on my limb enhancers.” There was a wet flop from somewhere inside the room, like soaked fabric being tossed to the floor.

More bickering. How had they even cooperated long enough to have sex?

Finally, the bed sighed as a large weight left it.

“Oh, come on,” Peridot groaned. “Checking on her isn’t going to make her regenerate faster. It’s not like she even _wants_ to come out.”

“I’ll be right back. Fuck, you’re needy.”

Heavy footsteps approached the open threshold. Pearl clutched her chest as her heart leapt when it became clear that Jasper was leaving. Leaving the room. Reason beseeched her to bolt, yet instinct snared both her feet to the floor.

Perhaps she would have time to quietly back away. A couple steps would bring her right back to the storage room and if she was as graceful as she knew she was, it would give her time to hide. And yet, when expedience mattered most, Pearl’s poise failed her. She stared up like a deer in headlights as Jasper turned the corner and met her eyes.

She was naked. Sienna skin glittered with sweat and her breasts hung ripe upon her chest. Her nipples were the color of blossoms. And she stood there, squared in the hallway before Pearl, one foot still inside the room like a statue carved from pigmented alabaster. Even the way her lips parted in surprise gave the impression that someone had captured a fleeting, remarkably delicate expression in stone.

On reflex, Pearl crossed her arms over her chest, as if to hide her breasts from view; or perhaps it was in sympathy for the brazen nakedness that Jasper did not move to conceal.

They stared at each other. Neither moved.

The look of shock on Jasper’s face softened into something, something unexpected. It almost looked like apology. Her gaze was on Pearl’s face as she took a step back. Then another step. And finally she turned to leave.

“Fine,” Jasper called to Peridot. Her voice was even, calm. “I’ll stay.”

Pearl’s arms were still guarding her chest when Jasper disappeared back into the room. Even as the bed creaked and Peridot crooned. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Jasper had just done her a favor. Of all the things she could have done in that moment—teased her, grabbed her, alerted Peridot—she chose to leave. Simply leave.

Shaken and cheeks still warm, Pearl turned around. She shuffled back to the storage room without that coveted grace. And in her chest, a fluttering bird beat against her ribs and sang a little blustery song whenever she thought about ochre shoulders.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

Jasper had lived with other gems before. She’d been packed shoulder to shoulder with soldiers in the barracks during many a deployment. She had even shared a ship with several at a time. Though Jasper preferred her solitude, it never bothered her. She’d never thought twice about how living with others made her feel. Until Pearl.

It was a strange feeling, like Jasper was an intruder in her own apartment. Her space, bestowed upon her due to her rank and prowess, suddenly felt a lot smaller than it ever had before. She subconsciously avoided any room she knew Pearl to be occupying. A flossy ballerina silhouette pirouetted in the recesses of Jasper’s mind. Any sound or hum or pitter-patter of feet put her on edge. Every corner she turned held the possibility of running straight into Pearl again, much as she had the other day. 

The other day...

Just thinking about it had Jasper’s neck running hot. It made her miserable. 

How had she been so stupid as to let Peridot talk her into fucking while Pearl was regenerating? She should have known that at any time, Pearl was liable to reform and come back and find them like that. Tangled in each other, breathing into each other’s mouths, wet where their skin clung together. It shouldn’t have mattered, of course, except that it _did_. It had frightened Pearl to stumble across them like that. She had seen it in her eyes when they met in the hall and Jasper had not been able to shake that moment from her mind.

Jasper realized she didn’t even know how long Pearl had been standing there. Had she been there when Peridot stripped her uniform from her wiggling hips? When Jasper had feasted upon her cunt? Had she even been there when Jasper lost control and let Peridot coax her to evert? 

Pearl had seen and heard too much.

For how eager Jasper had been to bring Pearl out of the Nursery and into her apartment, Jasper was doing a lousy job of keeping her happy. How did other warriors and nobles manage their pearls? Their pearls always seemed so blithe and vacant and easy.

Pearls, as Jasper was learning, were not easy to keep.

Or maybe it was just _this_ pearl.

The sound of hammering from the storage room started up again. Jasper hunched over the console in her own room and tried not to think about what Pearl was doing back there. There had been much hammering and clamoring from Pearl’s space over the last few days. Many a dust cloud had choked Jasper as she skirted through the halls. Something was taking place, but she refused to sate her curiosity. The thought of going back there to check on her and seeing those big blue eyes again had Jasper frowning. Her neck got hot, too. She wished it would stop doing that.

Regardless, she had not heard anything break, so she could only assume Pearl wasn’t destroying anything. That was good enough for Jasper.

The communicator at her thigh buzzed. Again.

Probably Peridot. _Again_.

Jasper brought the communicator to her face and prepared her lips for a snarl. She was ready to tell Peridot, for the hundredth time, that she did not want her here now that Pearl was around. Maybe this time if she bared her teeth, she’d get the message.

The incoming screen, however, was not Peridot’s face. It was, instead, the yellow diamond insignia.

_Oh._

The snarl disappeared and Jasper unconsciously sat up straighter in her seat. Even ran her hand over her hair to push it off her forehead before answering the call.

The communicator screen opened a window with a familiar face staring back at her. It was, however, not Yellow Diamond. Sour expression, pouting thin lips, and flouncy chiffon took Jasper by surprise; it was Yellow Diamond’s pearl.

“Yellow Diamond requests your report.”

It was hardly a greeting. No preamble, no introduction. Too direct to be amiable. Had Jasper not been used to these types of messages from Peridot, she might have let slip an unflattering remark, but as it was, she took it in stride.

“What report?” she said. “I haven’t been on a mission since I returned from Earth and my peridot submitted one for that mission.”

The sides of Pearl’s nose creased in annoyance. “Your report on Rose Quartz’s pearl. It says here in your file that you are to submit an interrogation report. Where is it?”

Oh.

That had been part of the plan. Or, at least, that was what she told Yellow Diamond she would do to obtain possession of Pearl. It had been a heat of the moment excuse and had been the least of her worries lately. Yet interrogation was the last thing Jasper wanted to do right then and she wasn’t sure what to think about that.

“Well?” Pearl said. “Are you going to file the report or not?”

“I intend to,” she said. “My pearl just regenerated. Just...give me some more time.”  Because what choice did she have? One did not simply refuse an order from a diamond.

“Ah, I see. It does say here you needed to get rid of that star on her uniform. Very well.” Pearl made a few gestures toward the console in front of her. “The coming weeks, then. You will be expected to submit a report.”

“Understood.”

The window on the communicator disappeared and Jasper was alone again, frowning. She wondered if pearl-induced headaches were common to those who dealt with them.

More hammering noises interrupted Jasper’s thoughts and reminded her that her own pearl was just one room over.

Jasper would not fail Yellow Diamond and leave herself vulnerable. There was no reason why she couldn’t interrogate Pearl for information. She had done it once before, she could do it again.

She set her communicator on the table and followed the sound.

Jasper wasn’t sure what she expected when she rounded the corner into the storage room. Maybe an entirely new dimension had opened a rift there. Or perhaps Pearl was attempting escape via a large hole she was bashing into the wall. She did not, however, expect to see Pearl’s backside (scant hemline just barely clinging to the bottom cusp of her ass to retain her decency) poking out from beneath a large shelf construct that had most certainly not been in this room before.

In fact, most of the room was unlike what Jasper had seen before. All of her treasures, all of her beautiful trinkets and memories, were visible. The film of dust had been lifted, revealing her collection as she had never known it to be. Colorful, polished, arranged carefully on shelves. Great, stuffed beast heads—four of them—Jasper hadn’t seen for millennia were mounted on the wall, their snarls greeting her to remind her of that good old hunt long ago. Layers of rugs sprawled on the floor in vivid arrays.

It looked like a trophy room fit for a diamond and it stole the breath from Jasper’s throat before she could formulate a response. She could only stare as awe ebbed at the memories that flooded into her. They crashed in waves until she was left with but one question.

“Why?” She croaked.

Pearl made a noise of surprise and jumped. There was a thud from beneath the shelf as she hit her head. When she sat back on her knees, she flipped the visor of her welding helmet from her face before rubbing at the sore spot. “Oh!” she said. “I didn’t hear you coming. For once.”

Jasper’s lips were parted and her eyebrows buckled as she took it all in. The presentation, the way everything looked brand new. This was what Pearl had spent the last few days working on? “What did you do?” she said.

Pearl stood. She ran a slim finger along the nearby shelf, as if checking for dust. It gave her an excuse to avert her eyes as she said, “If I am going to stay here, I thought I should at least keep myself busy. This place needed some of my superior organizational skills. That’s what pearls are for, isn’t it?” Sharp, blue eyes turned to Jasper, appraising. They did not look apologetic in the least. “Do you not like it?”

“I...I really like it,” Jasper said. Took her first step into the room. Reached out to touch one of her swords on display with something that looked like reverence. It felt good in her hand. She looked to Pearl. “But why? Why did you?”

The appraising expression on Pearl’s face softened. She set down her hammer. “I know why I’m here, Jasper,” she said, tilted her head. “Do you?”

Jasper pressed her lips together. She looked at Pearl with eyes like glass.

Pearl sighed. Her fingers twisted together. “If I am here to be your pearl, then I ought to act like it, shouldn’t I? I should clean, take care of your business matters, serve you. Serve you however you wish. That’s what a pearl does for those that own them. Happily, gracefully. But I think you and I both know that this is not like that.”

She wasn’t wrong. It had been apparent since the battle on the beach that Pearl was not typical. And after Jasper had done so much to try and mold her back into the shape she was supposed to be, it had not worked very well. There was still something, something about Pearl that seemed more enlightened, more vivid than the others of her kind. For all Jasper had tried to strip her of that in the beginning, there had been a point somewhere along the line where she had stopped, where she became drawn to that uniqueness. There had been a point where the fantasy of owning a rebel pearl with grace and fire outweighed Jasper’s knowledge of what was right and good.

“You are not like a normal pearl,” Jasper said.

Pearl gave a tight-lipped smile, wry and acerbic. “To you? I suppose I’m not.” She fussed with a chip in the paint on the nearby shelf. “I know why I’m here, though,” she said. “I know why you did all you’ve done. Why you took me out of the Nursery. Why I’m here.”

Jasper blurted her protest. “I’m not interested in hurting you. I told you that.”

“I know,” she said. “If you wanted to, you would have. Like you did on the ship, you would have—”

“On the ship, I wasn’t—”

Pearl raised her voice above Jasper’s bumbling, persistent in her desire to be heard. “ _But you’re not hurting me_. You’re not. You don’t even wish for me to serve you, for pleasure, for luxury.” A thread of exasperation wove its way into her voice. She pressed her hand to her temple. “I have been thinking about this.”

Jasper could feel her neck getting hot again. To even think of doing to Pearl now what she had done to her on the ship felt foul. Of course she liked the idea of rubbing her fingers against the swollen heat of Pearl’s cunt again. Of course she wanted to watch her crumple like a wilting rose when she came. But not like that, and not with blood on her thighs or her belly heaving from the strain of being hung up like a doll and—

—and for all Jasper’s discerning what she _didn’t_ want it was becoming very difficult for her to rationalize what she _did_ want. Except that she wanted something, and she wanted it to feel like a soft breeze overcoming her instead of like a hard knot of organs in her belly. She wanted it to feel right, not wrong. And most of all, she wanted to slam her fist into the nearby shelf to disperse some of this mounting frustration for not having a damn idea of what she was doing. Her fists were curling.

And then suddenly Pearl was there in front of her, looking up at her with shrewd eyes. She was close. Unafraid. Pearl had not been afraid of her for a while now.

“You’re very lonely, aren’t you?” she said.

Jasper’s fists uncurled. “I have Peridot,” she said.

Pearl’s expression was kind. “ _Very_ lonely.”

So she was. Jasper did not bother to argue further that point, because she was right. Jasper did not mind being alone, of course. She liked it for the most part. She did not _need_ anyone else, she never had.

_But it would be nice if..._

Jasper realized she was staring, slack jawed. She had been for some time. “I’m supposed to interrogate you,” she said. The look Pearl was giving her was making it difficult to keep secrets. “Yellow Diamond would only let me keep you if I got more information about Rose Quartz from you. That’s the only way I could keep you here. With me.”

A slow nod from Pearl. She seemed to understand. “But you don’t really wish to interrogate me.” She stated.

Jasper looked away. “I hate Rose Quartz. I want to find her, I want to bring her to justice. But that’s not why I want you here.”

“I know why you want me here.” Pearl reached toward Jasper with timid fingers. “I told you. I know.”

Jasper watched those fingers come toward her and did not dare breathe lest she chase them away with even the most minute of movements. They found her cheek. And, like they had found a home there, they stayed.

“I’m not weak,” Jasper said. She felt like she had to remind them both of this.

“Neither am I.”

The moment passed and Pearl’s fingers left Jasper’s cheek as if they had never been there at all.

“If you wish to know more about Rose Quartz so badly, I will tell you more,” Pearl said as she turned. She walked along a row of shelves and admired her work with an aloof satisfaction. “You must know that during the rebellion, I worked alongside Rose. All those tactics you respect so much?” She shot a glance over her shoulder with all the precision in which she threw her spear. “Many of those were mine. My tactics, my vision.”

“Yours?”

“Oh, yes. And her recruits were often put into my hands to train for battle. Gypsums, hessonites, turquoises. Even jaspers like you,” Pearl said. She hummed to herself. “I know quite a lot about jaspers.”

The idea of a pearl training a jasper was a preposterous one. It made Jasper equal parts intrigued and bristled by this story, true or not. “What do you know about me?”

“I know Jaspers are bull headed and persistent. I know they are ferociously loyal to leaders who prove their strength and skill. To them exclusively, they are obedient. Soldiers and servants—they are one in the same. For a jasper to bend a knee to another gem is a great honor.” Pearl watched Jasper’s face. Though there were several paces between them, it felt like she was too close. Far too close.

“Loyalty is not something to be given freely.” Jasper took one step closer to Pearl. Then another. And then they were irrevocably close once more, as though the gravity of their orbit pulled them together. Jupiter and Europa.

Who was Eurpoa, though, she wondered? For surely Jupiter’s soaring travels across the cosmos were not so affected by the presence of a single moon, a moon which would not even exist had it not been for Jupiter’s massive gravitational pull that held them together. It was Europa who sought Jupiter, and Jupiter with the headstrong power to move forward without consequence to the bodies that swooned around it. Who was Europa, who was Jupiter?

It was when Jasper saw Pearl standing there lit in the dregs of the Midnight City, her shoulders pinned back with such beauty and power that she could not distinguish dancer from soldier that she finally knew the answer. Pearl had known all along.

Jupiter looked upon her moon with curiosity. “You wouldn’t have come for me in the Nursery if you didn’t already think I was yours. What did it? Was it the sex? The geode?”

“I don’t know.” Jasper said. And in that moment, she realized that she had bared herself completely to Pearl. Three little words and she had confirmed everything Pearl had been grasping at. She had come for Pearl in that Nursery. Had reached a hand out to rescue her from that place and then lost herself in the idea of belonging with her. And now, she realized with dread, Jasper wasn’t sure how to get out.

But did she want to get out?

She was guarded as she eyed Pearl. Like a tiger backed into a corner, trying to find an avenue of escape. Testing and judging with black pool pupils deep enough to get lost in.

“I know that you already like me. You think I’m yours,” Pearl said. “So I will tell you more about Rose. Because I know now that you won’t hurt me. You wouldn’t do a thing but protect me, will you?”

A shiver raced from the back of Jasper’s neck, down her spine. She felt it numb her defenses; everything she had, everything she was, had been laid out on the table. There, for Pearl to see and touch and study. It left Jasper winded. Drowning. She couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. “I want to protect you,” she whispered. It felt like defeat. Like the last throes of a beast conquered. “I’ve wanted to for a while.”

Pearl came close. Jasper could see the jut of her sternum and the feathered spread of her ribs in the open window of her uniform. Even the crescent of her breasts was visible there and Jasper had never noticed that before, but now that she was close, she couldn’t help but see it all. She had to tilt her chin down.

“Will you kneel for me?” Like an offering, Pearl reached out a hand. Palm up, beckoning.

Eyes wide in shock, Jasper glanced from the proffered hand to Pearl’s face. Was it supposed to feel like this? Was Pearl offering a boon supposed to feel like their galaxies were collapsing together? Like the ashes of scorched earth, like death’s sweet afterlife? Was Jasper supposed to want this, despite everything, despite knowing that it would char everything she left behind the moment she ignited it?

But what if it would become beautiful? As beautiful as the late evening fantasies that left her fingers awash with slick...

Jasper lowered herself to one knee. Then the other. And then she exhaled the rest of her pride.

Pearl’s outstretched hand barely had to move to cup Jasper’s chin. Soft fingers closed on either side, keeping her head tilted up.

Up. She had to look up to see Pearl now. That was new.

Tigress bowed before the dove. Europa buckling under the massive gravity of Jupiter. Jasper closed her eyes and let the shudder run its course, from chest to toes. What Peridot could not do after nights spent tangled together, Pearl could do with but a touch of her hand and a quiet word.

“Do you like this?” Pearl asked.

“I’m not weak,” Jasper said. Her throat bobbed once.

“Of course you’re not. You’re a soldier,” Pearl said. Her fingers traced the stripes on Jasper’s face, mapping them for the first time. “A good soldier. You follow orders well, don’t you?”

A numb nod. Stiff, yet eager and responsive.

“Will you follow mine? If you follow my orders, I will give you what you want.” Pearl said. “I know what you want.”

Jasper felt the flames of desire lick at her neck and cheeks. The fire in her chest roared and she could feel the embers rise to her eyes. “Is it that obvious?” she rasped. Guilt flooded her as she met Pearl’s gaze.

Pearl just smiled down at her.

It was obvious, then. Too obvious that Jasper had become wound up in the charms of Rose Quartz’s pearl, had become obsessed with the thought of having her in every way she could. But in a small way, there was relief that she no longer had to hide from it. They both knew. They both knew and all Pearl did in retaliation for such lack of control was cup her face in her hand and smile at her. For that, Jasper sighed and reached out. She slipped her hands around the back of Pearl’s thighs, letting her palms skim up the space between stocking and hem and then—

The sting of a hand across her face made Jasper flinch.

The benevolent smile on Pearl’s face was gone. “No,” she said. Her voice shook. “You don’t get to touch me.”

In shock, Jasper let go.

The smack wasn’t enough to turn her head, wasn’t enough to even truly hurt—Pearl likely didn’t have enough strength in her body to affect a quartz warrior—but it smarted enough to get Jasper’s attention. It sent a spike of something cloying, something fluttery, right down into the heat of her—

Obedient.

The sting on her cheek still lingered; a red patch of skin marked her shame. Every throb of irritation was a reminder.

“Hit me again.” The words slurred out before Jasper could stop herself.

Pearl’s eyebrows rose. “Hit you?”

“Do it again.”

It took a moment of Pearl examining Jasper’s face, searching her dilated eyes before she finally seemed to settle into the idea. She read the lust written there on Jasper’s parted lips and breathy words. Pearl considered these things, weighed them, evaluated, and finally relented out of pity. “It’s that bad for you, is it? Homeworld keeps you on a leash so short that this is what you want.” A pair of hands slid over Jasper’s cheeks and down her neck. They settled there with a presence like a heavy collar as Pearl leaned in close. “I’ll ask you again. Will you follow my orders?”

Surrender didn’t feel like surrender; it wasn’t supposed to feel like freedom. “What do I gotta do?” Jasper said.

“Just say ‘yes.’” Pearl’s thumbs stroked over the column of Jasper’s throat. She spoke so sweetly, even when she said, “I’m not like you. I wouldn’t force you.”

It made Jasper remember what she’d done. She closed her eyes to forget, whispered her consent as if a plea for forgiveness. “Yes.”

That was all it took. The shackles from around Jasper’s neck lifted and delicate hands swept up into her hair instead. They pushed rowdy locks from her face and roamed along her scalp. As Pearl traveled in a half-circle to flank Jasper, the hands traveled with her. Silver unraveled between her fingers and Pearl hummed in appreciation.

The hair on the back of Jasper’s neck prickled as Pearl came to stand behind her. Position of power, of execution, of assassination. And yet, when Pearl laid hands upon her, it was only to pull at the collar of her uniform. She tugged it down over Jasper’s shoulders.

“This can come off,” Pearl said. The way she said it was so patient, so nurturing. “Use your hands, Jasper.”

Heart thrumming in her chest, Jasper pulled at the top of her uniform. She freed her arms easily and worked it down over her breasts. Unrestrained, they spilled out. The uniform sat bunched at her waist in the natural divot where the muscles of her abdomen bowed inwards.

Pearl’s fingers raked Jasper’s hair back in earnest to comb through it. The mane was not an easy one to control and a few tangles and snags hitched along the way, but she worked it all out smoothly before Jasper even noticed. She had practice preening long, voluminous hair before. “Tell me what you want to know about Rose.”

There were many questions Jasper had about Rose. Questions she had internalized and mulled over for most of her life. And yet now, here, with her hair being fluffed over her shoulders while she kneeled before a pearl, Jasper found she did not care so much about that. There were other more pressing questions that raced to her lips. “How did you do it? How did you become strong enough to help lead a rebellion?”

The hands in Jasper’s hair faltered. “Well,” Pearl said, “Rose taught me to be strong. She showed me what freedom felt like, she wanted me to take it for myself. I followed her first because it was all I knew how to do, but then I began to see what it was she wanted for me. Liberty. I had never had that before. No pearl had.”

“You _are_ special,” Jasper said sagely, like she knew something of these matters.

A sudden tug forced Jasper’s head to tilt back until she was looking up into sharp blue eyes.

“I’m not special,” Pearl said. Her voice trembled. “I’m only lucky.”

And then she released Jasper and went back to preening her hair with curt, punctuated motions. Annoyed.

Jasper got the sense she had said something wrong. Yet another statement she’d intended to be complementary had not settled well with Pearl. Disgruntled, she chewed on her lower lip and scowled. How was she supposed to know?

After some uncomfortable silence, it was Pearl who relented first. Her tone was softer, apologetic. “I’m lucky that I can make fine geodes. Lucky that it made me valuable enough to give as a gift to an esteemed gem in Pink Diamond’s court. I was lucky that it was Rose and that she wanted me to be my own gem. She wanted to hear my voice, to watch me dance. Taught me to speak again. She was fascinated by me for a long time. She was perhaps the first to realize that I was not unique. Any pearl lucky enough to be plucked out of that Nursery and given a voice would have thrived like I had.” Pearl grew quiet. Her hands grew still. “We don’t come out of processing mute and dumb, you know. We learn that. We learn that if we don’t seal our lips and follow our orders that we’ll end up crushed and recycled like those that didn’t do as they were told. I saw enough pearls from my own cohort, sisters, to know straight away what was expected of me. Compliance. After a few hundred years, you forget you could ever speak at all. You forget to care what happens because you’re broken. They’re all broken.” Pearl let her fingers rest on the nape of Jasper’s neck. “But I got lucky.”

Jasper thought hard about that. She thought about sun-streaked sandstone and crooked geology. She thought about her own sisters, weak and stunted. “Yeah,” she said. “Sometimes we get lucky.”

Pearl returned her nimble ministrations. It wasn’t long before a sleek, rope-like braid was laid out upon Jasper’s shoulder. The unbound ends tickled at her breast.

Like a maiden at her loom, Pearl hummed as she wove hair like thread. She crafted it into intricate plaits instead of tapestries as she rocked on the balls of her feet. Peace settled over them as Jasper let it happen. Such doting—was it doting?—was foreign to her.  It felt confusing. It made her curious.

Jasper plucked a braid between two claws to examine it and was immediately accosted with a blustery reaction from Pearl.

“Put that down,” she said, batted at Jasper’s hand. “I’m not finished. Behave.”

With a noise of irritation, Jasper resumed her stoic posture and did not poke at Pearl’s hard work again. Braid after braid.

Finally, Pearl reached over Jasper’s shoulders. “There,” she said. She arranged braids neatly over Jasper’s breasts. Primped and fussed. “So much hair. But you keep it in good condition, I’m surprised.”

Questioning, Jasper glanced at Pearl and found her expression to be soft. Open. She looked pleased. Jasper wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t sure why she’d gone through all this trouble of fussing with hair when their talk earlier had suggested other more desirous things. “What are you going to do to me?” she murmured.

With a clear, spirited laugh, Pearl simply set her hand on the top of Jasper’s head like it was meant to be a comfort. “Put your hands behind your back,” she said, “and you’ll find out.”

To put her hands behind her back went against every instinct Jasper had. Somehow, she knew what was going to happen even as she moved. Only one thing happened when a soldier surrendered their arms, yet she did it anyway. And when Pearl grasped her wrist and guided her arm to her liking, Jasper’s shoulders tensed. Vulnerability prickled up the rungs of her vertebrae.

“You don’t have to do this,” Pearl said.

Jasper’s response was only to nudge her other arm up against the first, pressing them together at the wrists.

A hum of approval from Pearl. She pet the top of Jasper’s head, stroking, finger tips combing. Finding the rifts between the braids. Then she gripped. She pulled gently but with all the persistence of a glacier in melt.

Jasper tilted her head back to accommodate. She gasped, her chest rising and falling as her neck bared. Open and exposed.  It was everything Jasper’s body knew she shouldn’t be. Restrained and defenseless, crouched there in a room full of swords and axes.

The braids were bound to her wrists. Pearl wrapped them ‘round and ‘round; her knots were tight and her touch was gentle.

“Pearl.” The name crossed her lips unbidden.

From behind, Pearl cupped Jasper’s cheek. “You’re alright,” she said. “I won’t hurt you.”

At the end of it, when Pearl looped the last of the braid around her wrist with a resolute little tug, Jasper found she could not tilt her head back down. At least, not without her arms twisting uncomfortably higher behind her back. The realization had her panting harder, pupils dilated at the ceiling. She was very stuck.

Pearl glided back around her, Jupiter in orbit. A hand played with the loose braids still draped over Jasper’s shoulder. Approval quirked her lips. “You’re being good,” she said. “I didn’t think you would get this far.”

A grunt answered her. Jasper clenched and unclenched her jaw. The muscles in her throat twitched and her eyes rolled as they followed Pearl’s every moment. She looked like an animal caught in a snare.

“ _Very_ good.” Pearl leaned in close and, with little preamble, gathered Jasper’s breasts in her hands. They didn’t fit. The volume was too large for her petite grasp, but she kneaded them anyway. Her thumbs roamed over the rosy circulette of Jasper’s nipples, eliciting a series of gasps that Jasper had never heard from herself before. Needy, too far gone. Her eyes glazed over. Her chest was heaving so quickly that Pearl giggled at how difficult it was for her to keep hold of Jasper’s breasts. They kept slipping from her grasp and she had to constantly find them again. “Calm down. It’s like you’ve never been touched before.”

“I haven’t,” Jasper choked. “Fuck, I haven’t.”

 _Never before, not like this, never before_ —

Her hips searched in vain little circles. Wanting touch, wanting Pearl, yet devoid of anything. Her squirming tugged at her scalp where her taut braids served as shackles. The pain, the entrapment. Of all that she wanted, she didn’t think she would ever get it like this. Such deprivation for a gem so impatient was the worst sort of torture.

And then Pearl’s hands settled once again around her throat, feather-light and steady. She gazed down into Jasper’s face. “Are you a good soldier?” she asked.

Jasper desperately wanted to be. “Yes,” she said. She had no breath left.

“Then be a good soldier. You can take it.” Those hands slipped down to cradle Jasper’s breasts again. “Strong. Loyal. Remember what you are made of.”

Jasper remembered. And this time, when Pearl pulled braids from her shoulders and began to bind them around her breasts, she stayed stoic. Evened her breath. Her kneeling salute to Pearl would hold until she was commanded otherwise.

It was beautiful craftsmanship. Jasper’s chest became the canvas for an intricate weave of knots. They radiated from her sternum and bowed under the weight of her breasts before meeting at her throat and to the braids that bound her wrists to her back. A halter, a harness to keep Jasper contained in the most benign way. Supple and gentle to her flesh, yet utterly revealing. Her nipples refused to be contained behind the bonds—they poked out in crimson protest, or perhaps in a plea for attention. Pearl seemed to notice, too. Her fingers’ frequent feather-light touches over their perk could not have been an accident. She smiled whenever Jasper shuddered.

“Look at you,” Pearl took a step back to admire her design. She rested a finger on her chin and seemed perfectly pleased. She did not even notice that the hem of her dress had ridden up on one side to expose another glorious inch of her thigh. “This is my best work yet. I thought Amethyst had good hair for this, but yours is much longer and easier to manage.”

Jasper’s response was a moan.

“There’s only one thing missing.” Pearl crouched and grasped at the bunched remnants of the uniform still lingering at Jasper’s waist. Looking her in the eyes, she began to pull it down. Slowly. Watching for any sign of protest.

There was none. Jasper raked in breath with a sloppy thirst, lips parted.

The uniform took some work to get over Jasper’s hips and ass. The curves did not wish to relinquish the fabric. But once she got it down to her thighs, it was easy to settle around her knees.

Their faces were close. They shared each other’s breath. And it was difficult to escape the intimacy when Pearl placed a hand upon the plume of hair on Jasper’s mons. Her sex was hot, beckoning. Pearl searched further, fingers creeping until she found the split of her labia. She only had to dip one finger past the seal to find the pool beyond.

A sigh from both of them, an echo of pleasure for pleasure.

“I just wanted to see,” Pearl whispered. Like she had been caught doing something naughty, her hand retreated.

It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right. Jasper protested with a flick of her hips, trying to recapture that which she had so sorely lost.

No luck. Pearl’s hand was long gone.

“I know,” Pearl cooed to her. Sympathy dripped from her voice. “I know what you want. But things like that, you have to earn. You need to deserve them. Work for them.”

Jasper was eager. “How? How, how?”

Pearl held Jasper’s chin. One of her fingers was wet. “How long did you keep me like this, Jasper? Bound and struggling? Helpless?”

It seemed like the question came from nowhere. It blindsided Jasper. She didn’t want to think of those times. All the things she had done to Pearl for so long were supposed to be in the past. It occurred to her only now that maybe they weren’t. Maybe she had yet to atone for them. “Four weeks,” she swallowed. “I-it was four weeks.”

 _Oh please, oh please_ —

“Four weeks is a long time,” Pearl said. “I know you don’t have the patience for that. But four hours? I think that will be an appropriate amount of time to keep you here. It will give you some time to think.”

Four hours. Jasper was not sure she could make it four minutes without screaming for touch or freedom. And yet, compared to four weeks, it was hardly anything. Compared to what Pearl had been subjected to at her own hands, her own orders, it almost seemed like a mercy.

“Are you gonna leave me here?”

“Yes.” Pearl’s smile was honey. “Are you going to be a good soldier and stay where you’re told?”

Jasper closed her eyes. “Yes.”

That was the end of the discussion. Pearl pat the top of Jasper’s head. It looked, for a moment, as though she didn’t want to leave her after all. But eventually, she did. She turned with a soft word of praise and walked out of Jasper’s line of sight, out of the storage room.

And Jasper languished in her solitude.

 

* * *

 

Four hours was a long time. It was long enough for Jasper to resort to counting her breaths and long enough for her to begin to rock back and forth on her knees in anticipation

She could hear the tap-tap of Pearl’s feet as she wandered around the apartment. What she was up to, Jasper could only guess. From the room beyond, her communicator blipped several times (likely Peridot), but the calls were cut short as, presumably, Pearl rejected each one. Her little dove had the run of the place and if she wanted to take control of Jasper’s electronics or snoop on some of the files left open on her console, she supposed it was only an inevitability. But she was a pearl, Jasper’s pearl, and it was about time she became used to having the run of the place. She was not a guest or tenant. This was where she belonged. As long as she stayed inside the apartment, Jasper saw no reason to protest.

Pearl made no attempt to leave. Just walked from room to room.

Four hours. Yet there was no way of telling time.

Jasper ached. Her body was strong, yes, but the strain was beginning to pluck at even her most well-trained muscles. Her discipline was tested.

The cloying heat between her thighs was sticky betrayal. It pasted her labia together with stubborn persistence, even when she wriggled her hips. The slip-slip of her folds against one another was just a tease. Even when she adjusted her knees further apart to test the stretch of her bunched uniform, her cunt pouted with the reminder of her arousal. Untouched, neglected, somehow wetter now than it had been when Pearl was here and touching her.

A good soldier did not cry out for help, however. Silent and obedient. Faithful to a fault. Pearl told her to sit here and think about what she’d done, and so that’s what she did.

When Pearl appeared around the door frame once more, Jasper nearly cried out in relief. She felt her body buckling already.

“Right where I left you,” Pearl said. She sounded pleased.

Jasper breathed through clenched teeth, so very ready to earn her reward for being obedient. She’d repented for the time she’d kept Pearl on the ship. She’d done what she was supposed to do and now she wanted—

But Pearl walked past her, heels clicking on the floor as she trailed along the rows of shelf storage. She seemed to be looking for something.

An indignant scoff from Jasper as she was bypassed. “Hasn’t it been four hours? Pearl!”

“Yes, yes.” Pearl paused next to a shelf. She bent to retrieve the object she had been searching for: it was the large, iridescent marble egg, the one that scattered colors on Pearl’s face. It shone upon her now, illuminating the smile on her lips as she turned back to Jasper.

It took Jasper’s breath away. For beauty, for desire, for fear. For that marble egg that sat in the scoop of Pearl’s palm.

“Jasper,” Pearl said as she came closer, bearing rainbows. “How long was I incubating your geode?”

Expectation crawled up Jasper’s spine with every one of Pearl’s steps and she knew, she knew what was going to happen next. “ _Pearl_ ,” she pleaded. Her throat was dry.

Pearl caressed Jasper’s cheek. So kind, so sympathetic. “Shh,” Pearl hushed her, leaned down to her strained face with that egg tucked in the crook of her elbow. “You can do it. You’ve done well so far.”

“Fuck, Pearl. F-fuck, I can’t.” Jasper’s thighs twitched, her hands clenched into fists. Her face was pinched in something that might have been pain but for the fact that she felt no pain in her body. Only ache, only unresolved electricity with no place to go. “I can’t.”

“You can’t? Have you given up so soon, then?”

From Jasper’s throat came a cry of frustration. Ragged and primal with teeth that snapped at the air. The sound of a soldier that surrendered themselves to a battle with no surrender. Her cry ended in a hoarse, manic sounding sob and she wished she could tilt her head down to escape Pearl’s searching gaze. Silence. Then: “Four weeks. The geode was four weeks.”

Pearl soothed her again, this time with a hand on her collar. “Very good.”

The press of cool marble against her cunt made Jasper gasp. Smooth and steady. The viscous parting of her labia welcomed it, opened like a flower in bloom to guide it toward her entrance. She felt Pearl give it a little twist to ease it up, as if it needed any help with such copious juice leading the way.

“I didn’t think you’d be _this_ wet,” Pearl said. “You’re taking it so well.”

The thinnest side of the egg went first, sliding with ease. It was only once the taper forced her cunt to stretch that Jasper made a sound. A small one, right in the back of her throat where she could not hold it back. She pressed her lips together tighter after that.

Never had anything so substantial been inside her. A few fingers were nothing compared to solid marble with ripe curves and volume.

The widest part of the egg pinched. It was but for a second, enough for Jasper to tense up in protest to the discomfort. That was all it took for the rest of the egg to pop inside, hugged by the vice of her lust. Clenching walls and rippling muscle. Wet enough for a slurry to drip out after the breach.

“You smell like iron,” Pearl whispered. Her lips were close to Jasper’s chin and her wet fingers rubbed idly at the hair on her mons. “Maybe you didn’t know that. But I can smell you. I can smell when you want me.”

Jasper hardly cared about how she smelled. She only could think about the weight inside her, filling her. How it pushed at her in all the right ways and did something to shoot spikes of arousal up into her belly. It was slippery and moved up when Jasper clenched, moved down when she relaxed. “What do I do when it falls out?” she said.

Pearl’s smile brimmed with pity. “Don’t let it fall out.” And then she stood.

Red-faced, Jasper groaned.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair because it was exactly fair. Pearl had planned it like that, hadn’t she? To put Jasper through a gauntlet of her sins in a way that was so sweet a torture that she would willingly subject herself to it, if it would only please her pearl. The burden of the geode was hers now. As it should be.

Jasper knew what she deserved.

 

* * *

 

The Midnight City’s sky changed from pink to purple as she knelt there alone. Color trickled through the fine dust motes and cast a nighttime glow.

Somewhere in the next room, her communicator blipped incessantly. Pearl didn’t seem to even care about shutting it up anymore. It rang and rang and rang until Peridot gave up.

Her arms burned. No amount of fidgeting on her knees got her thighs to stop quivering. Her jaw was sore from grinding her teeth. And yet, the marble inside of her was the only thing she could think about. She wanted to keep it in and prolong the pleasure. She wanted to push it out to end the torture. Instead, Jasper’s hips rolled in helpless circles. Aimless, wanton. Plunged into limbo. Sometimes when she twitched her hips to one side, she could feel the cool stick of a line of juice that had formed on her labia. Like a dangling chain of crystalline beads, it hovered there, sensitive to the minute movements of her hips. When it stuck up against her thigh, it would stay, only to have another one form in its place. Dripping.  

When she heard Pearl’s footsteps approaching, Jasper could have thanked every star in the sky.

“Pearl!” she called. Her voice sounded thin, drained. “Pearl.”

The footsteps stopped at the doorway where Jasper could not twist around to see. And then she heard an adoring chuckle, like that of a mother upon finding her child in a silly predicament. Warm and maternal. It would have been insulting had it not sent a quake of arousal through Jasper’s body instead.

“Pearl,” she said again.

“I know,” Pearl said. “I’m coming. Hold on.”

Mercifully, she did. Pearl came close from behind, traced her fingers along the braids in Jasper’s hair to make sure they had held up, and made a satisfied noise when she found that they were just as she’d left them. She pressed her palms into the contorted muscles of Jasper’s shoulders, relieving the ache for a blessed second or two. And then she came to kneel behind and her hands roamed down. Jasper could feel her eyes lower, too—her skin prickled wherever she imagined Pearl’s gaze was. Her clenched fists and raw wrists, her buckling waist, the cleft of her ass and then—

“Oh? What’s this?” Pearl reached between Jasper’s legs and plucked at the thread of slick that clung desperately to her cunt. It shivered against Pearl’s finger, but did not break.

Jasper’s only reply was a dry plea. “Pearl...”

A steady, kind hand set on Jasper’s back. “Shh. I know. I’m going to give you what you want now. Do you want that?”

“ _Yes_.”

That hand slipped between Jasper’s shaking thighs, a few inches away from her cunt. Palm-up and waiting. “Give.”

A cry of relief ripped from Jasper’s chest as she relaxed the pent-up muscles of her pelvis. Immediately, the marble egg succumbed to its gravid weight; it dropped into Pearl’s palm, followed by a deluge of clear fluid, still hot from Jasper’s core. She could feel the pitter-patter of lazy droplets hitting the bunched-up remnants of her uniform around her knees.

“Oh my.” Pearl sounded impressed.

Without that heavy weight and fill, Jasper suddenly felt very empty. The ache of being gorged was suddenly replaced by a gnawing absence as her cunt clenched around nothing and, in that moment, Jasper realized that the latter was so, so much worse. She wanted that marble egg again and wanted to feel how well it sat inside her and pushed so nicely against her internal arousal when she moved. Unconsciously, her hips pushed back and her back arched, tilting towards Pearl as if she could somehow convince her to slip it back in. What she got instead was much, much better.

Pearl’s fingers waded into the slick prize of Jasper’s cunt. It seemed like a treacherous journey, laden with so much overflow and sappy pools to get lost in. But she was careful, precise. Her fingers skimmed through plump folds. She caught the furling inner labia in the crux of her fingers and gave them a gentle squeeze and tug.

With a sigh, Jasper arched further. She had to lean forward precariously to thrust her hips back towards Pearl, but how could she care about such things? Jasper was beyond caring.

Somehow, Pearl’s searching brought her finger against Jasper’s entrance. Then two.

 _Pearl was going to do it, she was going to_ —

Fingers sank into her and Jasper sank with them. She could feel her body coming apart at the seams as those fingers reached inside and pulled a moan from her unlike anything she knew. Not for Peridot, not for Lapis, not for any of the other lovers she’d crossed paths with. For one thing, no other had ever tied her up and bent her over like a—

“You’re going to fall if you keep moving like that,” Pearl said.

Jasper sobered up and corrected the erratic gyration of her hips. Took a breath, bit down on her lower lip, and thanked the diamonds Pearl couldn’t see the red flush of her face right then. This was unbecoming of a quartz warrior. She couldn’t shake that thought. It was probably wrong and it was probably weakness, but just when she thought to break free and put an end to it, those fingers drew her right back in.

Three fingers, thrusting in and out with sloppy abandon. Pearl braced herself against Jasper with a hand on her ass while her other worked her cunt.

Four fingers and Jasper gritted, “Fuck!” because it was not quite deep enough, not quite big enough and Pearl’s hands were too slender and delicate and it just wasn’t fair to come this far only to be wanting more and more. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair.

Five fingers and Pearl was up to her wrist; the embarrassing squelch of Jasper’s cunt sucking her in made them both gasp in tandem. But then Pearl pushed forward and her knuckles grazed up the length of her internal clit and Jasper forgot to be humiliated anymore. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she found she could only love this. The hand on her ass, the tension of her bondage holding her body bent and vulnerable, the little pleased noises Pearl made whenever Jasper’s cunt proved to be more resilient and welcoming and hungry than she’d ever anticipated.

“ _Fuck, oh fuck, Pearl_ —”

Pearl must have felt the swelling deep inside. This was the silhouette of the cock she knew was lurking within, held back with nothing but Jasper’s own willpower, willpower which had been thoroughly tested in her hours of restraint. This was probably why she pressed up to Jasper’s ear and warned her. “Don’t you evert on me. Stay in.”

A wavering, wry laugh barked from Jasper’s chest. “Y-you don’t want me to flip you over and f-fuck you?”

The slam of a fist further into her cunt was a resolute ‘no.’

Bliss burst behind Jasper’s eyelids. It blinded her. And just when it ebbed away, it happened again. Pearl’s fist bowled into her and, like thunder rolled after a lightning strike, Jasper’s pleasure followed. Louder, more fearsome every time. The storm billowed closer.

And then her face was pressed to the floor.

And her hips were still rolling and canted for Pearl.

And Jasper didn’t care that she was like this, open and shameless with her cheek against cold tile, because Pearl was still fucking her, still whispering “Don’t evert,” every few moments as the intensity held Jasper’s breath hostage.

Thunder roared again, and it was only afterwards that Jasper realized that it was her own voice making the sound. She came screaming just like that. Teeth bared to the floor, toes curling in her boots. The throb of her cunt around Pearl’s fist gushed plenty of juice out and over her wrist to stream down her thin arm and she could barely, just barely, make out Pearl crying out in indignation at the mess.

For all the unsatisfactory orgasms marred by her claws.

For all the tepid lovers whose names she didn’t know.

For all the guilt and regret at her perversion.

This, _this_ was release, and it came to her from a rebellious little pearl who rebuked then rewarded. A closed fist and open palm.

Jasper sank into the numb void that waited for her. Arms still bound behind her back, she lowered her hips, tucked her thighs under. Still couldn’t manage to bring her head and shoulders up off the ground, and she looked defeated because of it. She was naked down to her knees and sticky with sweat. Only her chest rose and fell with labored breath.

Slowly, Pearl pulled her hand out. The suction made it a challenge, and Jasper hissed in protest at the sensation before Pearl managed to twist it free. It left with a wet sound. Jasper could feel her cunt still open and throbbing, but had little will to move and change it.

There was a tug at her back. Clever fingers plucked at the braids that restrained Jasper and, miraculously, it only took a moment before she felt the knots unravel all at once. She was freed. Unbound.

Slowly, carefully, she drew her arms forward. Some cramping, some soreness. But a soldier never complained about those things. She rested her arms alongside her body and found she still did not have the motivation to push herself back up, partly because she was exhausted, and partly because it meant she would have to look Pearl in the eye and she was not ready to do that yet. Not after everything, not after wallowing in her weakness, not after _wanting_ it so badly.

It would be best if things stayed quiet for a while.

They did stay quiet. Pearl shifted slightly, just enough to guide Jasper’s head nearer to her lap. There, like that, she began to undo each and every braid. It was a long process to unbind them, just as it had been to create them, but with significantly less talking. Just breathing in the haze that settled after sex.

“Are you alright?” Pearl finally asked. “You’re never this silent.”

“Is this going to make it okay?” Jasper said.

Pearl combed through Jasper’s hair with her fingers. “Make what okay?”

“The ship. What happened on the ship.”

Pearl sucked in air. Held it. Then let it all out through her nose. “It can, if you work at it. If you really do want to protect me, show me you mean it and I will decide at my leisure. In the mean time,” she reached out, grasped Jasper’s hand, and examined the formidable claws. “In the mean time, you need to get rid of these nasty things if you ever want to stand a chance at being allowed to touch me again.”

Jasper snapped her head to Pearl, a questioning look on her face.

Touching Pearl again was not something she had ever planned for, nor expected except for in the most lavish of quiescent dreams. It was not an unwelcome thought, however—nor was the thought that perhaps Pearl _wanted_ to be touched again in spite of everything. It felt good. Right.

Jasper considered her claws carefully.

Pearl must have caught her studying them, because she chuckled. “It’s not a promise. But if I am going to be here with you, then I suppose I should take advantage of the fact that you enjoy kneeling for pearls.” There was an indulgent smile from Pearl and Jasper’s neck grew hot again.

They lay on the floor for quite some time after that.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

“You shouldn’t do that so close to the window.”

Pearl looked up from her twirling spear to where Jasper stood in the doorway with arms crossed over her chest. 

“There are eyes all over this city,” Jasper said. “Someone could see you.”

Reluctant, Pearl fell back onto her heels and took a few steps away from the window. Once the Midnight City’s glow could no longer reach her, she returned to her en pointe grace and resumed dancing with her spear. 

The last few days had been quiet between them. Amiable, if anything. Pearl had free reign of the apartment to wander, dance, and practice her training as she pleased while Jasper looked on curiously from other rooms or, occasionally, accompanied her. She always seemed to sit near the door, though, and never allowed herself to become fully comfortable, as if always expecting Pearl to ask her to get up and leave at any time. Pearl never did.

This was their life now. Pearl was satisfied with it, too. Well, as satisfied as she could be given the dire circumstances. Jasper would bow to her and revere her every request. Her nights were quiet and her days were peaceful.

While Jasper had been bound with her own hair and whimpering for touch several days prior, Pearl had pried into her personal log data on her console. She’d discovered that Jasper would have to submit a report on her to Yellow Diamond soon. Jasper had mentioned it once, but never brought it up since. 

Pearl could feel a pair of eyes watching her as she lunged and pirouetted across the vast hall. She danced just outside the geometric rays of light cast from the window upon the floor.  Toed those lines with precision. Pushed her boundary with every step.

“Would you like to spar with me?” Pearl asked. 

Jasper frowned, sunk further into the doorway as if she wished Pearl would forget her presence. “I would crush you.”

Pearl spun in a graceful arc to face her, spear outstretched. “That’s what you said to me on Earth. And yet, here I am.” 

“I mean it, Pearl,” Jasper said. She made no move to join or play along. “It wouldn’t be a fair fight.”

It was intended to be a courteous rejection, a polite rebuff, but to Pearl it sounded like outright dismissal. Rude. Arrogant, even. For a gem who had fought so long to be recognized as a knight, it felt good when Jasper acknowledged Pearl’s prowess as she had many times before. It felt good to hear that praise, and it was bitter when Jasper retracted her respect when it suited her. “I thought you said you admired me. I thought you said you’d never seen anything like me before,” she said, spinning away in her soldier’s waltz. 

Jasper’s expression was drawn. “I’ve never seen a pearl like you before. But incredible as you are, you were still not designed for battle. What I’m designed to do, what I was created for...I could hurt you.” A pause. “I have hurt you.”

With an indignant scoff, Pearl thrashed her spear at an invisible opponent. “I’ve fought bigger than you and won.” 

“I’m sure you have.”

The worst part was that Jasper sounded earnest. She believed her. And yet she didn’t move from where she stood in the doorway with her watchful eyes and her proud, regal mane pulled back over her shoulders and a single braid still plaited up to her temple. It was almost enough to make Pearl squawk in frustration. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know what to do to make it feel better. But she did know that she wanted to prove something to Jasper to keep her from just standing there, quiet and demure as she had been since the moment she’d come screaming around Pearl’s fist. 

Pearl had bested her then and she would best her now, too.

With a shrill, Pearl lunged across the hall. She crossed through the light of the Midnight City with bold disregard. She saw the whites of Jasper’s glowing eyes and then whipped her spear down with a diagonal force that would have split lumber— 

The spear came to a dead stop, jolting Pearl so roughly to a halt that she felt her shoulders pop.

Jasper clutched the hilt of the spear in one hand. She hardly moved an inch and appeared less than impressed as she met Pearl’s gaze. “It would not be a fair fight. I told you.” 

Pearl gave her spear a push, put all her body weight into it. A strangled noise of fury escaped her.

It didn’t move.

She wrenched it back. She pulled hard, expecting Jasper to try to keep it in her grasp, not expecting her to let go without a fight. Pearl staggered backwards.

Jasper just stood there, looking at her. It infuriated Pearl to no end. She couldn’t even begin to describe the feeling that welled inside her except that it was a feeling she had warred against almost every single day of her life. It always lived in her, always plagued her. And now it was brought to the surface—as it always was—whenever someone looked upon her like that. 

Her patience, grace, and dignity slipped away. She felt her knees knock together and her lips pull back from her teeth and there was so _much_ she wanted to do just to show her—

Pearl came at Jasper again. She hacked down with her spear, only for Jasper to catch it again with casual ease and let go when Pearl pulled back. 

Then again.

And again. 

“ _Fight me!_ ” she trilled.

Jasper gave her that look again. Was it pity? Embarrassment on Pearl’s behalf? 

Infuriating.

Her cheeks were wet. She hardly noticed until she felt a tear dip into the corner of her mouth.

It wasn’t fair. 

Her spear sailed in a halfhearted arc and met Jasper’s palm. That was where it stayed. Pearl’s shoulder’s sagged in defeat and she leaned on the hilt, draped herself across it. Her knuckles were white where she clutched desperately. “You don’t really take me seriously, do you?” she whispered.

Jasper had no answer to that. And of course not—why would she? 

Sometimes Pearl forgot what Homeworld was like. She had been on Earth for so long that she had forgotten what to expect coming back here. Yes, she was free from the Nursery and yes, she had Jasper under her thumb. But at the end of it all, to them she was still just a pretty pearl with an endearing hobby. Playing pretend.

“Oh, if I had been created to be as big as you. What life would be like,” Pearl sighed into the crook of her arm. “It would have been glorious. I would have been marvelous.” 

Somehow she melted closer to Jasper, sinking with the weight of her grief. Jasper’s thigh was against her own and she could feel her arms pressing into a familiar abdomen. Her body was warm and fragrant like rich, warmed soil.

“I enjoyed having power over you last time we were together,” Pearl confessed. “I enjoyed it quite a lot. It made me feel strong.” 

Jasper’s voice vibrated from her chest; Pearl was close enough to sense it. “I felt strong while you were doing it. I liked it.”

Head hung toward the floor in defeat, Pearl laughed bitterly. “Of course you did. It’s impossible for you to feel weak, I suppose. You probably don’t even know what it feels like.” 

Jasper looked at Pearl curiously, head tilted. “Weakness...”

Suddenly the world was sinking. Pearl’s support dissolved and she was forced to catch herself on her spear to stay upright. Startled, she looked down to see that Jasper was once again on her knees before her. Those formidable hands bracketed her thighs, holding her there. Plush parted lips and bedroom eyes greeted Pearl. There was starlight in Jasper’s hair. 

“Weakness,” Jasper said again. “I feel...”

Her face pressed close and Pearl felt the puff of her breath somewhere too promising. And maybe there was a brush of soft lips. A tremor of anticipation charged through her. And then a jolt of panic from seemingly nowhere sent her spiraling away from the very idea. 

“ _No!_ ” Pearl wrenched back, didn’t even give Jasper the chance to let go; her claws were still latched onto Pearl’s stockings and slashed into the fabric with the force at which she pulled away. She drew her spear back without a shred of finesse. It smacked Jasper, unguarded, in the face as Pearl reeled. In its wake, a long, shallow cut across the high plane of her cheek.

For a long moment, they stared at each other in shock with an uncomfortable distance between them. Pearl breathed heavily and gripped her spear at her side. Jasper’s eyes were wide and her hands outstretched as if trying to grab a phantom. 

Then Jasper put a hand to her cheek. When she pulled it away, she saw ferrous blood. She almost smiled. “Heh. Weakness.”

A pang of guilt overcame Pearl. She didn’t like it. She wasn’t supposed to feel sorry, not for Jasper, nor for her supposed ‘weakness.’ And without thinking any further on this uncomfortable feeling, Pearl puffed herself in indignity. “Yes, well,” she said, her voice pitched high and righteous. “What did I say? You’re not allowed to touch me with those claws of yours. Look what they did!” She pointed to the rips in her stockings. 

Jasper’s eyes followed Pearl’s finger. They lingered long enough to take in the damage before lowering to the floor.

It was all very reactionary. Pearl did not feel particularly good about herself. Neither her reaction, nor her rebuke made her proud. If anything, it was the worst she’d felt all day. 

“Just don’t do it again,” she said. Her shoulders buckled toward her cheeks and she turned away.

Unenthusiastic, Pearl went back to her practice. And the next time she turned toward the doorway, Jasper was no longer there.

 

* * *

 

Jasper took her time licking her wounds. She shouldn’t have been surprised. This was bound to happen sooner or later. Vulnerability was always the preamble to pain.

She should have been averted to it, should have used her soldier’s wisdom to analyze where she had failed to protect herself, and then gird herself against any future attacks. She should have taken a hammer and nail to board up the gaps in her defense. It should have bothered her, itched where raw skin peeked between the slats in her armor. Instead, she found herself staring down at her claws. 

Jasper was created to be a living weapon. Her size and strength were only two facets of her design. Beyond her helm and the weapons, she also had been gifted with hands that could maul. She didn’t need anything but her own body to rip flesh from gems. Should she lose her destabilizer or warhammer in battle, Jasper would never be rendered defenseless. She was always a weapon. Always. On the battlefield, on patrol, in the barracks, in the shower, in the bedroom...

She stared at her claws. 

How many times had she seen her hands coated in blood? How many times had she raked them across the flesh of her enemies? Her allies? Herself?

She stared at her claws. 

They were part of her, her design. Her format. She could not shapeshift them away no more than she could rid herself of her eyes or her mouth.

She stared at her claws. 

A message from Peridot woke Jasper from her thoughts.

_I got a new capacitor for the ship that came in today. It’s too big for my place. Come here and pick it up._  

Typically these types of messages would make Jasper complain in return. She might order Peridot to take the equipment to the ship and store it there or just completely ignore her altogether. But today, Jasper had an idea. She messaged Peridot back.

_I’ll send Pearl over to pick it up._  

Pearls did those sorts of things, right? She tried to remember what she’d seen or heard and decided vaguely, yes, pearls were often used to run errands by those in the upper echelon.

Jasper found Pearl sitting on her cot, looking out upon the Midnight City’s horizon. She appeared deep in thought. When Jasper approached, she looked up. 

“I need you to go pick up a part for me,” Jasper said.

Pearl appeared surprised. “Me?” She pressed a hand to her chest. 

“Yeah, it’s kind of big part for the ship. Peridot wants me to handle it. You can, uh, fit things in your gem, right?”

She touched her forehead absently. “Why, yes. I can. I simply...” Pearl was flustered. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand. You want me to go outside? Without you?” 

It sounded like a terrible idea. Allowing her pearl outside of this apartment on her own to traverse the streets without supervision did not sit well with Jasper’s urge to protect. So many things could happen while Pearl was out there alone. Jasper was less worried about her trying to run away and more worried about other covetous gems. A pearl traveling alone was not due for a safe journey. Pearl’s expression seemed to recognize this fact.

Jasper needed this though. She needed the time, the solitude. 

In her hands, she produced a golden collar. It sat in both her palms as she offered it up to Pearl. “You have to wear this. It’s a tracking collar. Should keep you safe enough.”

Pearl looked from the collar to Jasper skeptically. Then she turned her head to the window to regard the city beyond with her lips pressed together in longing.

“I know you want to stretch your legs,” Jasper said. “I know you don’t like being cooped up in here all the time.” 

That was enough to convince Pearl. She slipped off the cot. “Very well. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Homeworld up close.” And then she began to stealth her way past Jasper.

Well, she tried. She didn’t make it very far before Jasper reached out to guide her back before she got too far. 

“The collar,” Jasper said. She held it up between two fingers.

Pearl regarded it with an uncharacteristic pout to her cheeks. She looked thoroughly betrayed. A noise of protest accompanied her snub. 

It was a little endearing, Jasper had to admit. She nudged a knuckle beneath Pearl’s chin. “C’mon. Other gems will leave you alone if they know you’re owned. Probably.”

The frown only deepened. Pearl was offended, petulant. 

“Pearl.”

With a huff, Pearl finally tilted her chin up to bare her throat. A reluctant invitation. 

Jasper placed the collar around her neck, taking care not to pinch her when she clasped it at the front. The close was adorned with a small, circular electronic pad that glowed until Jasper pressed her finger against it. Her resonance sealed the lock. She could hear the mechanism inside produce a finite click. “There. I’ll open it up for you again later. But until then, I can keep an eye on where you are from here if something happens.”

“Nothing will happen,” Pearl scoffed. “I can protect myself. You know that.” 

“There are a lot of big quartz gems out there.”

Pearl did not protest again. She nodded agreeably as Jasper presented her with a communicator that held the navigation instructions to get her to Peridot’s apartment in the nearby district. Scoffed when Jasper told her to call if anything happened. Sighed heavily when Jasper asked her to at least call once she got to Peridot’s place (but still consented). She even let Jasper walk her out of the apartment, down the lift, and into the lobby of the building. She did not, however, give Jasper so much as a backward glance as she stepped out onto the promenade, clutching the communicator to her chest, and disappeared into the bustling throng of gems beyond. 

Jasper knew she shouldn’t have expected anything more from her rebel pearl.

The apartment seemed empty without her. Jasper did not realize how accustomed she had become to having another gem around. Suddenly what had been normal for her was abnormal. Abject loneliness. 

She made a mental note to appreciate Pearl’s company a little more when she returned. Maybe Jasper should linger closer. Or try to at least have a conversation since they were residing together, after all.

It took Jasper a while to find what she was looking for in the storage room. Since Pearl had rearranged everything, Jasper’s organized mess had been disrupted. She’d had a system. Not a very good system, true, but a system nonetheless. 

She found the hatchet mounted on the wall near an assortment of other weapons. It was light in her hand. It did not feel like it had much power behind it. A few experimental swings, however, assured her that it was serviceable and so Jasper knelt on the floor and got to work.

 

* * *

 

Eyes followed Pearl’s every move. She got strange looks. Some were simply shocked, others leering. She parted the sea of gems as she walked down the promenade toward the shuttle, chin up as she focused straight ahead and tried to ignore those looks. It was nothing she hadn’t dealt with before, she told herself.

Big quartz soldiers leaned too close on the shuttle. 

There were whispers. Lewd hands.

_Look at that little skirt she’s got._

_Barely covers anything at all._

_Wish she had a little belly. I always like those pearls with a belly on ‘em._  

It was a crowded shuttle with standing room only.

Someone fingered the hem of her skirt. Plucked at the top of her stockings and worked them down a few inches around her thigh. Pearl didn’t turn around. Just got off on the next stop and waited for the next shuttle. 

She didn’t notice she was shaking, not until she looked down at the communicator hugged to her chest and debated calling Jasper and asking her to come pick her up. It rattled in her hands.

She would never get used to it, would she? Had it always been this bad? Pearl realized she had forgotten so much of what it was like after all her time on Earth. She had forgotten what it felt like to walk through a throng of gems who looked at her and touched her like they owned her, with nothing but the collar around her neck proclaiming her to be a possession to keep them from _really_ grabbing her. Pearl had forgotten. 

A shuttle rushed by on another track.

Pearl tried to still her hands and calm her breathing. She could see her reflection in the dark screen of the communicator; tight lips, glassy eyes. If she wanted, she could simply turn the device on and see Jasper’s face looking back at her instead. Jasper would nod, listen to her plea, and come fetch her immediately. Wouldn’t even make fun of her for calling for help, probably. She was likely expecting such a call. And then Jasper would take her under her arm and be her guardian for the rest of the trip to Peridot’s apartment and not a single gem would dare look twice at Pearl. No lecherous things would be whispered her way. No suggestive smirks. 

The shuttle arrived in a rush of wind and creaking steel. The door opened to yet another car brimming with gems. Standing room only.

Pearl took a deep breath, kept her head down, and stepped in. 

Only a few more stops. She could take a few more stops.

_Shit, Sis—look at that little thing._

_Reminds me of the one we bought for the barracks back in the day._

_Yeah, but this one’s actually quality, though. You’d go broke trying to buy her._  

_I mean, you get what you pay for..._

Pearl made it to district five without any more hands thrust up her skirt. Somehow she felt lucky for that. It had been a long time since she’d considered herself lucky for such a thing. 

Peridot’s apartment was a very tall building. Many slim windows dotted the seemingly infinite number of floors. It was plain, geometric. There was no attempt to hide the fact that this building was simply designed to house as many gems as possible.

Outside, a number of smaller gems (many of them peridots), walked up and down the promenade. Pods of all shapes and sizes zipped overhead. 

No one seemed to pay Pearl much mind except for the occasional scoff in her direction when a peridot or chrysolite stumbled into her when they weren’t paying attention to where they were going. It was refreshing, actually. No one tried to brush up against her as she went in through the front doors. No one tried to grope her on the elevator up to the seventy-eighth floor.

When she knocked on the plain-looking door at the address Jasper had given, she expected to see Peridot answer. Instead, she was met with a pair of blue eyes. 

“Oh. It’s you.” Lapis murmured around the door frame.

“ _If it’s Pearl, let her in!_ ” Peridot yelled from somewhere further back in the room. 

The door opened to a room that was only a fraction of the size of Jasper’s apartment. Pearl shouldn’t have been surprised, considering how claustrophobic the doors and windows were in this building. It was less of a residence and more of a dormitory. The space wasn’t too much bigger than the cells pearls were kept in at the Nursery. It was, however, more hospitably furnished.

There was a small workshop crammed in the back corner. A desk was littered with mechanical tinkering tools. A bed, too, resided here. It was considerably less cluttered than the one Peridot had on the ship. The rumpled blankets and pillows suggested that this one was actually lived in and used for something other than simple storage. A door to the right appeared to lead to another connecting room, though Pearl could not imagine it was very large, either. 

It was difficult to take in any more details, as smack dab in the middle of the room, a cylindrical, ship-sized capacitor was crammed into what seemed to be every last vestige of space. It was almost comical. Peridot had to squeeze past it as she came to the door.

“Okay, you’re here,” she said. “ _Finally_.” 

“I made it,” Pearl said. She sounded deflated. For a brief moment, she couldn’t help but think about not making it here and all the terrible places she could have ended up instead. It was not a nice thought.

“Well, then get in here and take this stupid big thing to Jasper. It can’t stay in my place.” 

It was an odd sort of reunion between the two of them. Both Pearl and Peridot trying hard not to acknowledge each other’s discomfort. It had not been long ago that Pearl watched Peridot writhing atop Jasper in ecstasy.  It had not been long since Peridot had all but pried into Pearl’s body with a hand on her thigh and a rusty tool fumbling to grasp at a half-labored geode. It had not been long since Pearl hung suspended and stabilized as a prisoner in Peridot’s diabolical electric shackles. And now they pretended to be amiable.

Pearl took a few timid steps inside. She eyed the capacitor lodged in the middle of the room. Sighed and closed her eyes. It was a rather large piece of equipment and Pearl was not entirely keen on having to accommodate it inside her gem. It didn’t help that Peridot began making impatient noises almost immediately. 

A white light encapsulated the capacitor, jetting from Pearl’s gem. Its physical form fluctuated, became liquid light. Pearl felt the weight of its matter fall into her. It was much larger than what she normally kept in her gem, but it wasn’t impossible.

The light faded and the room was no longer crowded with a ship-sized capacitor. It was still a small, cramped, room of course, but at least now there was visible floor space. 

“There, see?” Peridot turned to Lapis. “I told you Jasper would take care of it.”

“Jasper didn’t do anything,” Lapis said. She leaned against the wall with a disinterested expression. 

They appeared to be losing interest in Pearl. She had done her job and now she could leave, as far as they were concerned, but Pearl was not ready to do that yet. Not just yet.

“Jasper wanted me to call her when I got here,” Pearl blurted. 

Peridot turned around and looked at her with a lip curled in confusion. “What? Why?”

Pearl adopted the expression of an innocent, vacant pearl. Round eyes and shuffling feet. “I don’t know.” Her eyes glinted toward Peridot’s fingers. “May I use your communicator?” 

“Why can’t you just use yours?” Peridot pointed to the device still clutched tightly to Pearl’s breast. She appeared thoroughly disgusted at having to point out such an obvious thing. She didn’t look surprised, however. After all, Peridot knew Pearl to be a simple gem. That was the way Pearl wanted to keep it.

With head bowed in shame, Pearl said, “I don’t know how.” 

A noise of condescending vexation—much longer and louder than necessary—wheezed from Peridot’s chest. Lapis simply watched the exchange, expression neutral but eyes alight with keen intensity. Pearl got the sense she could see right through her.

_Please don’t say anything, please let it go..._  

Still groaning, Peridot’s fingers begrudgingly arranged themselves to form that familiar hologram screen that bathed the room in green light.

Pearl felt like a wolf. Her eyes never left that screen as Peridot clamored and clanked her way over before thrusting it at her. 

“Here. Just press on the button right there and you’ll call her.”

The metal was cool on Pearl’s palms as she accepted the device. How odd it was to have a piece of Peridot that served as a part of her body, for as Peridot stepped back and away from her, she was missing four fingers on one hand and it looked more bizarre than usual. This disembodied assemblage of Peridot’s hand felt strange, too personal. Not at all what Pearl expected. 

Pearl looked up from the screen, still wearing that helpless expression. “Do you think we could have some privacy?”

“ _What?_ ” Peridot scoffed. “Privacy? Why do you need privacy to call Jasper—does she want you to call her naked or something?” 

This time, the blush that rioted on Pearl’s face was no act. Her embarrassment spoke volumes on her behalf. Convenient.

Peridot’s cheeks were greener than normal when she pointed one remaining finger to the single door that connected to another room.  “Well, fine. If you’re going to do that, go over there. And don’t let us hear any of it.” 

She didn’t need further invitation. Pearl swept past Lapis, still clutching Peridot’s communicator, and didn’t look back. Lapis’s eyes bored into her. Knowing, amused, idle. It itched.

With a hydraulic hiss, the door opened, revealing the room beyond. It was white. A blinding white. The angular lines of the glass panes and surfaces in the room suggested a clinical and sterile environment. In one corner was a cylindrical chamber, closed, that extended into the ceiling. A retractable tabletop sat inoperative and mounted to the wall. Everything was quiet but for the soft breath of ventilated, well-filtered air coming from a grate above. 

The door closed behind and Pearl looked down at the communicator in her hands. The interface was primed for a call and Jasper’s name was at the top of the list. But Jasper was not who Pearl wanted to call. Not yet.

Her heart fluttered as she knelt in the far corner to face away from the door. Pearl hovered over the communicator as a protector, as if clinging to the only good thing in this world. Now was her chance. The place felt wrong, the time felt too short, too perilous, but Pearl could not wait another minute. 

Her fingers glided along the hologram screen easily. Peridot may have been a new gem model with new technology, but Pearl could still make it work. Of course she could—she had only been away for a handful of millennia. Peridot underestimated her competence, which was just as well. Pearl doubted she could have snuck in here alone if Peridot had any idea of what she was capable of.

Lapis, on the other hand... 

Lapis knew.

The thought only made Pearl work faster to dig through the logs. There were so many communication sectors that Peridot could connect to, so many frequencies with jargon names that Pearl didn’t recognize. Numbers sixteen to twenty digits long cascaded down the screen as Pearl scrolled and grew increasingly panicked as she wondered if the line she searched for was somehow hidden in this puzzle of a catalog. 

And then there it was. A simple five-letter code: Earth.

Pearl didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she sighed. Her chest released the aching tension in that single exhale. 

She looked over her shoulder to ensure the door was still closed. It was. Pearl tapped her finger on the button to connect to the frequency Peridot had established on Earth before they’d left, the very same frequency that had forced Garnet and Amethyst to watch her plunging decline into Homeworld’s grasp. She didn’t want that to be what haunted Garnet and Amethyst anymore. She didn’t want her silence to be the last thing Steven remembered about her. Pearl had no control over what Peridot had shown them over the weeks, months she’d been away from home. Until now.

A green box popped onto the screen once the frequency connected. A video of Pearl’s own face played back at her in real time, and she smiled. A true, genuine smile. She sounded breathless. “Hello. Hello, everyone. Steven, Amethyst, Garnet.” Pearl paused and glanced down. “Greg.” 

Her family. The ones she left behind. She wanted them to know, wanted them to know.

“Don’t worry, I’m alone right now. No one is here. I just needed to let you know that I’m okay. I’m going to be okay. I miss you all terribly. Especially you, Steven.” Even saying his name aloud made Pearl’s heart clench. She pressed a hand to her throat and tried to get these words out, looking at her reflection in the recording and imagined that those she loved were gathered around her instead. “I wish there was something I could tell you to make you understand that it’s going to be alright because I know you must be upset right now. Your heart has always been so big. Like your mother’s.” Pearl paused. She wondered if she should bother telling this story. Why should she bother telling Steven about this now? Did it matter? 

In the end, she decided that it did.

“Your mother rescued me, you know. Before the war, she was the one who took me to Earth and showed me what freedom felt like. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret knowing what it feels like to be my own gem, to be free and to love, though it is hard to come back to Homeworld after a few thousand years of that. It is hard. But I wouldn’t give it up for anything. And I’m so happy I got to meet _you_ , Steven.” 

She didn’t have much time. Oh, she wanted to sit here nursing this console in her lap forever. She didn’t have much time, though.

“You taught me so much about love and life. And I hope that one day we’ll meet again. Maybe when you’re older. But not soon, for I must ask something very important of you.” She took a breath to steel herself. “Do not come find me. Please, Steven. Stay on Earth. Protect it. Grow with it. The Earth is your home and it needs you. Garnet and Amethyst need you. Your father needs you, too. So stay where you are. I’ll find a way to see you again somehow. In the meantime, don’t forget to keep your room tidy. Eat your vegetables like a good human boy.” Tears streamed down her face in the image of the recording. She didn’t believe they were real until she reached her hand up and felt them on her fingertips as she pushed them from her cheeks. Wet. Raw. “And don’t stay up too late playing those video games, alright? I love you. I miss you.” 

It took until she said those words for Pearl to realize just how much she longed for them. All of them. She missed Garnet’s strong, reassuring hands and missed the way she smiled inadvertently when she talked in her own head. She missed Amethyst’s lux and silky hair against her skin, her lurid laugh, and even those stupid, unrefined noises she would sometimes make to annoy her when they were supposed to be having a quiet moment. Yes, Pearl even missed those. And oh, how she missed Steven. The flappy sound of his sandals on hardwood whenever he was around had become a comfort. The joy he brought to each and every thing, every moment. So many hours spent folding little red shirts fresh from the clothesline. Sometimes alone. Often together. How he looked up at her with such adoration and opened his portly arms to demand a hug and the way she could feel the gem on his stomach when she wrapped her arms around him. How much he reminded her of Rose...how much some days it really felt like he was hers. Gems couldn’t have ‘sons,’ could they? But sometimes Pearl really wished—

Fat tears clung to Pearl’s chin. She wiped them away, only for more to take their place as she drowned in this nostalgic misery and the knowledge that never again would she get to have these things she held dear. Bitterly, she wished she had savored them when she’d had the chance.

“I miss you,” Pearl said. “I love you and I miss you and, oh, I don’t want to go but I must.”

Because if she didn’t do it now, she may never find the courage. 

“Goodbye.” It was a whisper. Such a painful word, one she’d had to say far too often lately. Goodbye to her family, goodbye to Earth, goodbye to freedom, goodbye to Rose...

The recording window closed. The signal dropped. Pearl bit down on her tongue to keep herself from crying out loud so Lapis and Peridot wouldn’t hear. She reminded herself that she had done what she’d come here to do. And now she had to return to reality. 

Jasper’s name was still at the top of the frequency list. It didn’t take long for her to pick up.

“What do you—oh. It’s you,” Jasper seemed surprised to see Pearl looking back at her. She probably had not expected her to be calling directly from Peridot’s line. “Looks like you made it there fine. And uh...are you crying?” 

Pearl pressed her palms against her puffy eyes. “No,” she lied. “I’m fine.”

“What did Peridot say to you? I swear, if she said a damned thing, I’m going to come over there right now and—” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Pearl insisted. “I’m okay, just shaken up. From the trip.”

Jasper looked at her through the screen, brows furrowed. She looked like she was trying very hard to solve a math problem, or to put the last finishing touches on a puzzle. “Do you want me to come there and take you back? Or Peridot can take you in her pod. She’ll do it if I tell her to. Just give her the communicator and I’ll tell her to do it right now.” 

At first, Pearl shook her head. No. She could make it back on her own. She’d survived the harrowing ordeal to get here and she could endure getting back. But she was still sniffing back tears even as she spoke to Jasper. Her hands shook. She’d cried a lot today. And so, in spite of herself, she allowed herself this weakness, this lapse. She began to nod instead. “Okay,” she said. “Have Peridot take me back, please.”

All at once, a great wave of relief wrapped around her like a warm blanket. She’d forgotten how nice it felt to sometimes allow herself the help she needed. 

It still felt like a handicap.

“Okay,” Jasper said. Her voice was even, confident. Surprisingly kind. “Give the communicator to Peridot. She’ll get you back.” 

Pearl was still hiccoughing sobs when she left the room and handed the communicator to Peridot. She gave Pearl an odd look, but took it without comment. Ten minutes later, they were in that small pod together again, silent.

With empty eyes, Pearl stared down at the streets below. She saw the tracks for the shuttle. The memories made her stomach churn with fresh revulsion. She studied her hands instead. 

“She’s not that bad, you know,” Peridot piped up. Her gaze was fixed out the front window, eyes blank with static as she interfaced with the pod’s console. “She’s actually kind of nice to you.”

Pearl looked up. “Who?” 

“Jasper. You know.”

Pearl realized how it must have looked when she left to have ‘privacy’ with Jasper and came back a crying wreck. “She’s fine,” Pearl hurried to say. Her arms tucked tighter around her chest. “She’s not why I’m upset.” 

“Upset...” Peridot mulled over the word like it was foreign to her.

The rest of the trip was quiet. 

Peridot dropped her off on the balcony. Pearl rapped on the window with her knuckles, and it wasn’t long before Jasper appeared to let her in. With a flick of her arm, Jasper waved Peridot off, her gaze falling on Pearl with something that looked very much like concern. She held the door open so that Pearl could slip inside.

“You’re not crying anymore,” she stated. 

“I don’t spend my whole life crying, you know,” Pearl said. She was a little chuffed at how many tears Jasper had seen from her today. It was beginning to feel just a little bit raw to her pride.

Jasper seemed to understand. She nodded and closed the door. 

For the first time, Pearl noticed that Jasper was wearing heavy gloves made of thick leather. They were work gloves of some kind.

“What’s this all about?” Pearl grasped at one of Jasper’s gloved hands. Jasper let her take it. Examine it. The material was like hide, the texture was rough under her fingers. Not pleasant to the touch. It did, however, conceal Jasper’s claws. A spark of realization blossomed. Her own strife was forgotten as she latched onto Jasper’s misfortune like she’d just caught her rifling about in the cookie jar. She glanced up with a cocked eyebrow. “Gloves? Is this your attempt to be coy with me?” 

Almost immediately, Jasper pulled her hand back with a flinch of what could have been pain. “No,” she said far too quickly and emphatically to be anything but a lie. “No, I’m just wearing these so I can set up the capacitor.”

“Mmn.” Pearl put her hands behind her back and nodded. She did not even attempt to veil her skepticism; it still lived on her face with half-lidded eyes and lips pressed together to suppress a smirk. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, delighted to see Jasper squirm. It was an expression Steven had seen many-a-time when he lied about staying up late to watch movie marathons. “I see. Shall we go set up the capacitor, then?” 

With a grumble, Jasper led the way to the storage room.

It smelled more like iron than usual. Jasper’s scent. Some of the shelves had been pushed aside or rearranged to create a large space in the center of the room big enough to house the capacitor. A tinge of annoyance twitched at Pearl’s upper lip as she noticed that some of her careful organization had been disrupted. She had to remind herself that this was, in fact, Jasper’s place and she had a right to move whatever she wanted. And if need be, Pearl could move everything back again, just as she would do whenever Steven made a mess of his room back on Earth. 

“Just go ahead and put it here,” Jasper gestured. “I’ll get to it later.”

Pearl pressed her fingers to her forehead and her gem glowed. Liquid energy poured out in the shape of the massive capacitor without hesitation. It was such a large object; Pearl was happy to be rid of the burden—she all but ejected it from her most sacred metaphysical sanctum. It landed with a thud in the middle of the room, an obelisk of metal. 

The capacitor made a hollow sound when Jasper set her hand atop it. She patted it a few more times for good measure before admitting, “Pretty good piece of equipment. Peridot actually got a hold of a good quality one this time.” Jasper took a couple steps back to admire it.

“Ahem,” Pearl said. 

Jasper inspected a nest of wires poking out of one side of the capacitor.

“Ahem,” Pearl said louder. 

 This time, Jasper looked over at her. No words, just a curious expression.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” 

Jasper looked at the capacitor, then back at Pearl. She looked down at herself, ran a hand through her hair, shuffled back a few paces. Befuddled. Once more she looked to Pearl, this time imploring.

With a sigh, Pearl pointed to the golden collar latched to her throat. “You can take this off now,” she said. “It served its purpose and now I’d like it off.” 

“Oh.” Jasper’s expression softened. She curled her hands to beckon Pearl near. “Alright, c’mere.”

Despite all that happened since Pearl allowed this collar to be put on her—emotional, distressing things—she was determined for it to come off with her head held high. And so she approached with her hands behind her back and her chin tilted up to bare her neck until she could feel Jasper’s shadow and smell her iron. Then she waited. 

The pressure of a finger at the clasp weighed against her throat. She waited for the collar to unlock and fall away.

Nothing. 

Jasper grunted and pushed a bit harder.

Still nothing. 

Pearl opened her eyes and identified the problem immediately. “You can’t do it with your gloves on,” she scoffed. “It won’t unlock if you’re wearing those silly things.”

Indeed, the material was likely far too thick for the locking mechanism to read. Yet Jasper merely readjusted the position of her finger and tried again, frowning deeply. 

Stubborn. Pearl knew sometimes stubborn gems just needed a nudge in the right direction.

“Just take these things off, Jasper.” Pearl reached up and gripped onto the cuff of the leatherwork glove. She gave it a pull and almost got it down to Jasper’s wrist until— 

With a cry like a wounded tigress, Jasper reeled back. There were teeth, sharp teeth. Fierce teeth that framed the erupted scream with enough menace to make Pearl take two quick steps back. She expected Jasper to swat down at her and so she raised her arms over her head, but the flash of skin and leather that whiffed by her head was only a reaction, a reflex as Jasper pulled away.

Another grating, primal scream and it was enough for Pearl to cover her ears with her hands and close her eyes. When she opened them again, Jasper was somehow across the room. She put the capacitor between them and clutched her partially de-gloved hand to her chest. She looked wild where she peered around the monolith. Her pupils swallowed her irises until she had only two, black pools in her skull. The low rumble of a snarl still shook the floor beneath Pearl’s feet. 

Pearl took a step back. Then another. Her palms splayed open and beseeching in front of her, she gave the bristled quartz her space.

She shouldn’t have grabbed Jasper’s glove. Pearl knew her mistake. Shouldn’t have touched her and meddled without asking. A boundary had been crossed. It had not been clear beforehand, like a cobra lying in the grass, but the moment Pearl stepped on its tail she had fangs imbedded in her ankle. She knew better than to tread that path ever again. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Her voice shook, even as she tried to steady it. Truthfully, being face to face with an angry quartz was enough to shake anyone to the core.  She tried to stay strong and calm so that she might ease Jasper’s agitation. Perhaps she could soothe the beast she provoked. “I’m sorry, Jasper.”

Jasper postured. She shifted her weight onto her heels to look like she was ready to leap or strike, but from the way she peered around the capacitor with wide, brute -blown eyes, it was clear she had no intentions of coming near. Not keen on fighting, but refusing to show an inch of weakness. All posturing, all body language. Pearl knew it well. It was the language of a quartz gem in pain. She’d seen enough of it in the war to know what it looked like and she had enough experience with jaspers and amethysts and citrines to know what was expected of her in return. 

Eyes lowered, Pearl turned her body away, averted herself. Non-threatening, non-challenging. Without a sudden movement, she stepped toward the door. She would let Jasper steep in her pain—wherever that pain had come from—alone. That was how all quartzes liked it. They were bred this way, Pearl reminded herself. They were bred with a little bit of animal in them to keep their blood hot.

“I’ll be in the other room if you need me,” she murmured. “It’s alright. It’s alright, you know.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jasper’s silhouette shift. Pearl ignored the prickle of hair on the nape of her neck and kept on walking. It was never particularly wise to turn one’s back to a frenzied quartz, but Pearl trusted. She didn’t trust Jasper unequivocally, but she trusted her enough. It payed off; Pearl found no claws dug into her back nor a weapon at her throat as she left the room.

Later, when Jasper slunk back out from the storage room, Pearl sat with her hands tucked between her knees and asked her what was wrong. Jasper promptly told her that the capacitor looked pretty good and that she’d be helping Peridot install it in the ship in the next few days in preparation for their next mission. That was all she said. 

Evasion was an Amethyst tactic, so Pearl was used to it by now. She simply nodded her head and went to sit next to Jasper by the console panel with that golden collar still heavy on her throat.

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Flashbacks to situations where Pearl and Jasper were to naive to properly consent to sex.

Pearl didn’t remember the moment of her inception, only the cold and bleary journey sometime after. She remembered looking out into a darkened warehouse, strapped to an upright gurney with her arms crossed over her chest. Naked. To her right and left were other pearls, her sisters. They all dangled in a neat line from a monorail conveyor that clicked and lurched as they moved through the dim space. 

Then they stopped.

Someone on the floor below yelled. There was a mistake. Something hadn’t come out right.

Too tall, too thin, missing legs, no eyes. Something was wrong. All of them were wrong. They would have to be crushed and reformed if there was to be any use from this batch.

Pearl heard it all, and yet she didn’t remember feeling anything. No fear or aversion. Somehow, she grasped what was about to happen, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to care. After all, the darkness of nonexistence was a familiar place. She had just come from that place, so she did not mind the idea of going back to it.

A more calm voice spoke up. It would be wasteful to throw all of them out. There were no perfect pearls in this batch, but at least spare the useful ones. They were all going to the Nursery anyway.

The belt moved again, and Pearl was separated from most of her sisters. Only she and two others remained.

She didn’t know what happened to the others, but she could guess.

The Nursery was different back then. In the day, it was a paragon of life. The building was constructed as a monument to the vitality of their species, a strong and proud symbol. The first time Pearl saw it, it took her breath away. Dressed plainly in a white, formless coverings and ushered alongside her two surviving sisters, she remembered looking up to see the grand chandelier cascading down through the inner courtyard. It was bright and clean. The lobby floor was abustle with gems of all sorts, a hub of activity.

In that moment, Pearl recalled feeling excited. Happy. Her gem’s programming longed for a purpose and she knew she would find it here. Whatever this place was, she knew it was _her_ place. She had made it.

She was assigned a cell. It had a window that faced the western sky with a little bench for her to sit nearby. How nice. How homey.

She was assigned a handler, too. A sapphire with a soft voice introduced herself with a smile and told Pearl that she had a lovely pair of eyes. A clipboard was tucked underneath her arm where she took notes, many notes. Even when she came across the part in Pearl’s files that revealed the defective batch she’d come from, Sapphire put a hand on Pearl’s cheek and said, “Don’t worry, dear, I’m sure we can still make some fine geodes together.”

Pearl smiled. She felt better.

The next few days were formal. Pearl was taken into a room where they scanned her gem for records, analyzed her very nature under a fine microscopic gaze. She was given a brief tour of the Nursery, shown some of the ins and outs of the facility, from the rows and rows of cells housing other pearls—most of them heavy with geodes—down to the loading bay where crates of geodes were labeled, packed, and shipped to be processed.  

“Notice how quiet the Nursery is, dear,” Sapphire told her on their way back up to the cell. “That is because all our pearls know that it is important we keep a peaceful, silent atmosphere for all their incubating sisters. It’s just courtesy. Disruptive pearls are removed from the premises. Remember, a good pearl does not need to say a thing. Her handler will take care of every need or want she could ever have.”

Pearl understood silence was expected of her. Wasn’t that nice? Peace and serenity were admirable qualities to embody. So virtuous.

A busy week of orientation came to a close. No more tests, no more behavior evaluations, no more pre-recorded lectures on their role in the success of gemkind. It was time, Sapphire said, for her to make the transition from a fledgling pearl to a working pearl. Pearl didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but she was filled with anticipation nonetheless. She _wanted_ to be a working pearl. She wanted to contribute to her great society like all the others, because even if she was from a defective batch, Sapphire said she’d still be able to do good. Pearl wanted to prove her worth more than anything.

Clipboard in hand, Sapphire led Pearl down to the lobby. There was a door towards the back of the chamber she had never seen before and it led down a long flight of steps.

“This is very exciting,” Sapphire told her as they walked together. “It’s the day every young pearl dreams about. I know it’s going to be rather new and maybe a little scary, but trust me when I say this may very well be the best night of your life.”

Sapphire’s hand rested on Pearl’s shoulder, guiding her.

Sapphire would take care of her and give her everything she needed. She was trusted. Handlers would always do what was right for their pearls.

The walls were white. The steps were white. It was a long stairway that led to a long corridor.

“Because most of your batch—sadly—didn’t make it here to the Nursery, we’ve been running short on fledgling pearls like you. It makes you in short supply and _very_ expensive.”

Pearl didn’t know what that meant. She just stuck close to Sapphire’s side as they passed by a flock of handlers walking down the hall with sheets under their arms. There were many doors flanking each side of the corridor. No windows, just door after door.

They stopped in front of one of the many doors, which Sapphire opened. Everything was white, clean, spotless. In the center of the room was a large bed draped in a crisp sheet. A few other furniture items were placed meticulously along the perimeter of the room: a warmly glowing lamp, a bare table, a plush couch. Pearl became excited because it was all so lovely—lovelier than she had ever seen. It didn’t have a window, but she hoped she would get to stay here for a long time.

“Go on in. You’re going to have a guest, dear. A _fancy_ one. One of White Diamond’s generals. She paid a lot of money, so you have to promise me you’re going to be on your best behavior. I know it may seem a little scary at first, but your body will know what to do. It will feel so very good.” A sweet, reassuring smile. “Alright?”

Alright. Pearl nodded.

That was good enough. Sapphire came forward and grasped the hem of her humble dress. “Arms up.”

She raised both her arms over her head so Sapphire could pull the shift off her body. Like that, she left Pearl alone in the room.

About ten minutes went by where Pearl waited dutifully. When it became clear that no one was coming right away, she pitter-pattered her way around the room on bare feet to inspect everything she could find. The lamp felt warm when she put her hands close to it. The sheets were silky between her fingers. There was a rather fluffy throw blanket draped over the sheet and Pearl could hardly resist. She crawled onto the bed and wrapped herself up in that thing as soon as she discovered how inviting it felt on her skin. She cocooned herself up so snugly that she couldn’t help but make a small ‘Ah!’ noise in delight.

That was when the door opened.

Pearl looked up to see a large silhouette that belonged to a gem unlike any she’d ever seen before. She had only seen the svelte, compact pearls and the shorter, unimpressive physique of their handlers. The gem in her doorway was built like a bull with a barrel chest and powerful shoulders. She looked like she had just stepped off the battlefield, her heavy boots still caked in mud as she stepped into the pristine space. Thick neck, shapely jaw, alluring white eyes. Her hair was swept back out of her face and braided for war. She was an angel quartz, something Pearl did not know at the time, but would come to learn later.

To say the least, she took Pearl’s breath away. Still swaddled in her cocoon, she sat upright and regarded her ‘guest’ with lips parted and eyes wide.

Angel took one look at Pearl wrapped up on the bed and laughed. It was a hoarse sound, low and vibrating, but it was nice. Warm like embers. “You look comfortable.”

For some reason, Pearl felt the need to respond. All she was able to get out was a soft, “Ah!”

This made Angel laugh again. Pearl decided she liked the sound very much.

“Sorry ‘bout the mud,” she said as she kicked off her boots. “Just got off the ship from deployment. Heard they had a new batch in and I just couldn’t help myself. I’m a sucker for you lot...”

Pearl did mind the mud. She was glad Angel left it—and her boots—by the door before she came closer. Her gait was wide and confident as she strode right up to the bed with a casual ease. There was something about the way she moved, something about the strength in her arms and the size of her hands which struck Pearl as both strange and incredibly fascinating. One of those big hands reached out for her to take the smallest corner of the decadent blanket between its fingers.

Angel gave it a gentle tug. “How about I see the rest of you, Pearl? Can you do that for me?”

Of course she could. Pearl knew she was supposed to do whatever her guest wanted.

One corner of the blanket fell away, exposing her shoulder. With patience, Angel took another corner of the blanket and pulled that away, too. This time, Pearl’s breasts were bared. Her nipples were already perked to the cold of the room’s clinical air. She sat still as the rest of her was unwrapped with great care until she was propped naked on the bed surrounded by a swathe of blankets, unsure of what to expect, but eager for the good that Sapphire told her would come of this.

“They told me your batch was defective,” Angel murmured. Her eyes soaked in every inch of Pearl’s body with a hunger, a stirring. A glimmer of reverence. “Told me I wouldn’t want you and I should come back next year. Glad I didn’t listen to ‘em. You’re a pretty little thing.”

“Ah!” Pearl felt proud. She rocked up onto her knees, sitting tall. She was closer to Angel’s face now and could see the flecks of iridescent colors that smattered her skin beneath some of the battlefield’s soot. What a strong face with prominent features. Thick lips and chiseled nose. Her gem rested at the base of her throat in a spectacular, multi-faceted cut.

Calloused hands flanked Pearl’s hips. They roamed without jurisdiction. So warm. Rough in texture, but gentle in intent. A thick finger probed at the apex of her thighs.

“Wanna open up for me, sweet thing? That’s a good girl...”

Her guest laid her out on the bed. Pearl didn’t remember quite how, but she did remember being surprised at the sound of her own voice as she trilled away when those fingers toyed with her. She had never made those noises before. Nothing had ever felt so nice, so exciting.

Angel lay close to her back, pressed up to her. She nudged her face into the nape of Pearl’s neck and inhaled deeply to take her all in, then muttered about how nice she smelled. How clean, untainted, how she was the only good thing she ever got to have in this damned world. Then Pearl felt herself being pulled against Angel’s breasts, sinking into the warmth and ruddy scent of her war-hardened body and she knew in that moment, she was right where she was supposed to be. She felt that so long as she had gems like these to take care of her, she would never go wanting.

The sex was a savored indulgence. Presumably Angel wished to claim every precious second of it, for she took Pearl in so many ways on so many of the room’s virgin surfaces. Draped on her stomach over the bed, Pearl became well acquainted with the fat, delightfully curved cock that found a home inside her. And then again against the wall. And then again propped upon the couch, straddling Angel’s lap while Pearl squirmed with primitive desperation atop her. No finesse—Pearl knew nothing of what she was doing. Only that it felt good and Angel was holding her and there were lips on her neck and she was making forbidden little noises that echoed around her in a sinful chorus.

“You like that?” Angel encouraged those noises breathlessly. “‘Course you do. You want something nice, don’t you?”

She did not know what that ‘something nice’ was. She found herself nodding anyway. “ _Ah, ah, ah!_ ”

Angel gave her that ‘something nice.’ It gushed in pulses, filling Pearl as she took quick breaths in surprise. She looked to Angel for answers only to see her with eyes closed and lower lip drawn between her teeth. A groan, punctuated, rumbled from her chest. Her hips stuttered to a halt.

Pearl’s toes curled and uncurled as she took it. Filling. Wishing she would overflow. In the second before it became too much, she realized that this was how geodes were made. She had seen many pearls in the Nursery with their round bellies, prominent and stately. Working pearls. Good pearls. Now Pearl knew she was about to do that, too. That blip of realization swept over her before her body snapped rigid and she came to a loud, triumphant orgasm.

Cum on the inside of her thighs. That was the first thing Pearl noticed as she returned to the room. Angel still crouched over her, breathing hard against Pearl’s neck, and there was cum everywhere. Well, it seemed like everywhere. It leaked from between her legs. Still more came. And there, pressed up against Angel’s breasts, Pearl’s abdomen was rounded out and full. Her first geode. It already felt hot and alive inside her. Her body clenched around it with fervor, as if never wanting to let it go.

They both lay sated on the bed for a while after, flushed and breathing hard. Everything was calm, quiet. Pearl angled her body to show off her gloriously full belly. She looked like all the other pearls; she was proud.

Eventually Angel had to leave, but not before taking that plush blanket and wrapping it around Pearl with care until nothing more than her face poked out. She tucked her into a warm nest and it felt like an embrace. All she said was, “Cuz you looked cute like that.” Her tone was endeared. And then she put her boots back on, mud and all, and left.

 

* * *

 

 

“I saw her several times after that,” Pearl said. She stared wistfully upon the Midnight City. “I think she liked me. She was always one of the nice ones.”

Jasper watched her through the entire retelling of her first intimate time in the Nursery. She sat hunched in the seat, not smiling, not frowning. “Did you like the ones that would come to you?”

“Oh, yes. It was far nicer to incubate from another body against mine. It felt more complete, more real. It was a rare treat to how they usually did it in the Nursery. Typically it was with machinery and it was over very fast.” Pearl paused, her hand rested upon her cheek. She recalled the feeling of cold metal being slotted into her, the whirr of pumps, and impersonal orgasm that followed. “I never had control over that, though. The handlers weren’t supposed to let others play with us. Turns out they were doing that part of the operation under the table the whole time—very hushed. Never on the books. But very lucrative.” Pointedly, she raised an eyebrow at Jasper. “My handler made a _lot_ of money off of me.”

For a moment, Jasper seemed deep in thought. “And Rose?”

Pearl’s face softened at the mere mention of the name. “Rose, well. I was given to her as a gift,” she explained. “For some time, she kept me as intended. I served at her commands, stayed by her side to fulfil even the smallest of requests. She was kind. I still made her geodes. Some were from her, but others were from the numerous diplomats she lent me to in the course of negotiation. But then...something changed.”

The sound of Jasper’s stylus against her communicator tapped in Pearl’s ear as she took notes with the dedication of a peridot. Her large, gloved hands curled precariously around the tiny writing implement. These implements weren’t made for gems as big as jaspers, but damned if she wasn’t going to try to make them work for her anyway. “What changed?”

“She saw me. I can’t remember exactly how it started, but she began to see past the façade I kept to stay alive. She asked me to speak, to think.” Pearl looked at her hands, knotted together. “No one had ever asked me to do that before. It took me a while to remember that I could. She loved it, though. She loved watching me grow. I think she saw me as a project or an endeavor. Maybe a bit of a challenge, too. I think she found me fascinating and a bit sad.”

Jasper sat still. She studied Pearl intently.

“From then on, Rose no longer treated me like a pearl. I never incubated again. I think she became angry, then. For a long time, she protested against the use of the Nursery to colleagues, to diplomats, to the Diamonds. To anyone that would listen, really.” With a hand upon her cheek, Pearl recalled some of those fiery meetings. She remembered Rose beseeching—no, begging—Pink Diamond to listen to her for only five minutes. The awkward fumbling as Pearl was thrust before a Diamond and encouraged to speak, act, or do even the smallest thing to convince the elite that somewhere beyond the calcium carbonate shell was a soul and a life worth protecting. Oh, she remembered those terrifying moments well. “Eventually they listened. They wouldn’t close down the Nursery until Rose found another way to continue the progression and reproduction of our species, however. Gems needed to thrive, after all. The Diamonds were always in need of more gems to serve them. And, well, that was how the Kindergartens were created and the Nursery abandoned.”

Pearl inclined her head to one side to catch a glimpse of Jasper’s face in an attempt to read her. Was she intrigued? Bored? Horrified?

The console sat, screen dark, in Jasper’s broad lap. Her lips were parted. “I didn’t know,” she said.

“I assume Rose Quartz wasn’t widely discussed after the rebellion. At least, not beyond hushed whispers and rumors,” Pearl said.

“I knew of her,” Jasper said, her eyes glazed with recollection. “I even saw her once on the battlefield on Earth. But I didn’t know she was the one who started the Kindergartens.”

Of course not. The Diamonds would loathe to include Rose in any part of the history of gemkind beyond being a rebel force. That fact didn’t surprise Pearl in the least. “Something must always suffer for a gem to be created. Either a shackled pearl or an enslaved planet sucked dry of every resource it ever had. Take your pick, I suppose,” she sighed. “I think that is why Rose was so fascinated by the humans on Earth. She was fascinated for many reasons—they grow and change and their existences are pleasantly capricious. But part of that is the way they reproduce. In humans, it is common to form mated pairs. Some exquisite exceptions to this rule exist, but by and large as a species, humans bond with their chosen partner. They _decide_ to reproduce and rear young. Their courtship is ripe with the virtues of love and passion, things that Rose wanted desperately to experience for herself. You see, humans reproduce because they want to. They like to. There is joy in it for them. And I think Rose saw that and she wondered what it would be like if gems could have that, too. Perhaps then, there wouldn’t be so much suffering.”

Jasper went back to writing in that clumsy, inept way. Her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth, as if frustrated by how difficult it was to maintain the delicacy for such a task she was not built for. As If she knew she could do this much easier if she had been built with smaller hands, or been given a larger communicator. There was a reason quartz soldiers were assigned petite gems like peridots to help with menial tasks such as taking notes.

Pearl reached over, bridged the gap. She set her hand atop the scrawling stylus, stopping it in its tracks. “What about you?”

Jasper looked up in confusion, then back down at the stylus Pearl stilled in her palm. “What about me?”

“What about your first time? You weren’t made for breeding, yet I know gems like you do it sometimes.” Pearl tilted her head, trying to find Jasper’s eyes somewhere underneath a curtain of hair. “I know you like to do it.”

Disgruntled silence from Jasper.

“I told you about my first time, it’s only fair.” Pearl leaned forward with a simper curling on her lips and in her voice. “If you’re going to sit there writing down every little thing about me, then I want to know at least something about you.”

Curiosity was part of it, yes. However, much larger portion of Pearl’s desire to know was rooted in her desire for equality. She didn’t want to be the only one to give up her secrets. Knowledge should be traded for knowledge, because knowledge was useful. Right now, Pearl’s knowledge of what made Jasper tick was what kept this brute of a soldier under her thumb...

“Don’t tell me you’re frightened,” Pearl cooed, because that line always worked on Amethyst.

It worked on Jasper, too.

 

* * *

 

 

Only two weeks after the hasty, forced retreat from Earth, Jasper was thrust into the ranks of a foreign diamond. The few sisters and compatriots that remained after the vicious war were split apart, scattered across the galaxy to fill empty slots in battalions she had never seen or heard of before. They let her gather her empty leather duffle bag, gave her a sad smile, and sent her off.

She was young. It had only been five years since she’d birthed through Earth’s crust and she had only seen a handful of battles and one war—a war she lost, a war that would be known as one of the greatest failures of gemkind. Wet behind the ears and disgraced, Jasper stepped onto the warp pad and allowed it to take her to her new home.

This planet had already been conquered. The sky was a fiery red and the dust kicked up a ruddy, chalk-tasting coating on every tent, every construct, every surface. Amid the strange, barren land walked quartz soldiers so much bigger, stronger, and older than Jasper had ever seen. Their armor was raked with scars and scuffs from many battles. Their visages were imperfect in places—a cut on a lip here or a frayed patch of hair there—and Jasper had to wonder if some of them hadn’t been vaporized for centuries. They were a collection of weathered, hardened warriors and Jasper had never felt so inadequate in her entire—albeit short—life.

_She just came from Earth. The colony that fell._

_—belonged to Pink Diamond—_

_Not gonna last._

The whispers followed her as she took her nonexistent belongings to the barracks and found an empty bed on the outskirts to call her own. The planet’s dust coated her tongue already, a dry caked layer of disappointment.

The platoon had spent many millennia together. There was an intimacy to how those old soldiers kept close to one another, understood each other. When they weren’t training in the pits, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, huddled in groups against the scorching wind. She even caught a pair braiding each other’s hair. This platoon was bonded, a family, watching the outsider with cautious glances and the occasional leer.

It only made Jasper feel worse to learn that she was taking the place of one of their own that had recently fallen. That stung. The others wouldn’t have liked or trusted her to begin with, but the fact that she was sent to replace their dead companion only solidified Jasper’s feeling of isolation from the rest.

Quartz gems needed a family. They needed a pack, a pride, a brood. Jasper had fought so hard to keep hers together, only to have it destroyed and pulled apart anyway. When she looked at the platoon she now belonged to, she saw a reflection of what she and her sisters could have been. Could have. It hurt.

The nights on this planet were dark and frigid. Jasper lay awake on her bunk, wishing there were more blankets to ward against the ferocious, cutting wind that sliced through the cloth barrier of the barracks. A howling storm screamed outside. It was loud enough to mask most of the murmurs of the gems that were still awake and talking softly to one another as well as the deep, even breathing of the ones that were quiescent. And yet, Jasper could still hear the rustle of blankets and the creak of the bunk two spaces down from hers.

At first, she thought nothing of it. The shift of a body on the cot was loud because quartz gems were heavy and there wasn’t much they could do without making a lot of noise. But then the shift happened again, accompanied by an exchange of whispers and the rustle of straps and metal buckles being undone. A sigh.

Jasper turned her head. There was almost no light on this planet. She could see the quiescent form of the gem on the bunk next to her sprawled, face-down, breathing heavily. Beyond that, a large moving shape atop the next bunk over. It took a few moments for Jasper to realize that it was actually two gems, one arched over the other.

She didn’t know what was happening, not really. Naïve and young, Jasper watched this all unfold in darkness with a creeping sensation of intrusion, like she ought to look away, but curiosity got the better of her when she heard the wet, cloying sound as the silhouettes moved together. It sounded like fingers finding some place soft and open. There were more whispers, then a groan.

Jasper pressed her thighs together and she didn’t know why. It fueled the little furnace that was running in her lower belly.

Slick noises, hushed moans. Breathy sounds and whispers of ‘ _do it_.’ There came a point where those gems moved so sharply that their armor began to clank in a rhythmic chant. The creaking cot beneath them answered with a series of whines as Jasper made out the shape of a large citrine on her back with thighs spread wide to accommodate the hand of the agate crouched over her. Armor was pulled aside. She could see the citrine’s soft belly bounce as the hand thrust again and again. The pop and suck of wetness was hard to miss now, and Jasper had to wonder why no one else was even acknowledging this happening. Why was no one else doing or saying anything?

The citrine shuddered and made a choked little noise. The armor stopped clanking. The wind kept howling. It was still for a moment.

The agate gifted the citrine with a few affectionate pats to her wet cunt. They exchanged a few whispered words before they went their separate ways.

Jasper could not go quiescent the rest of her night. The ache between her thighs was too distracting.

The next day consisted of drills in the morning and patrols in the evening. Jasper worked until sweat clung to her brow, kept her head down, didn’t make a fuss. If she worked hard, perhaps they would accept her as one of them. She could prove herself worthy, prove she was more than a scrapped-together quartz from a haphazard kindergarten made by the Diamond she’d failed to protect in a war she’d failed to win.

Thick darkness fell upon the barracks that night. The wind was not as petulant as before, but the cold was still and frosty. Jasper could see her breath puff from her lips in ghostly mist as she stared up at the tent ceiling. It curled and drifted away, disappeared.

A hushed moan from the other side of the barracks hung in the air. A rustle shivered some place closer. Little by little, the barracks came to life in the dead of night, a secret but intimate ritual. It set the hairs on the back of Jasper’s neck on end as she listened to the sound of lovers creeping into each other.

Another puff of air shuddered from her chest. This time, it buffed against the outline of lips. Like a caress, it framed a chin, cheek, brow of a face hovering not too far away from Jasper’s. At first this face melding from the darkness startled her, but then she recognized that face. Half-lidded eyes, full lips rounded with a surprisingly warm smile, and cropped plumes of hair were recognizable, and Jasper no longer felt afraid. It was one of the amethysts. She looked welcoming.

There was a hand on Jasper’s abdomen, a palm on the buckle of her belt. The amethyst dipped close until her face was pressed up against the side of Jasper’s neck. She felt her inhale. Deep, sultry breath.

Jasper’s heart pounded with a frantic, battle-born beat. The heat between her thighs flared again as the amethyst’s hand moved lower.

Since birth, Jasper had been taught how to fight. She had been taught how to suffer. She had been taught to parry and protect and sacrifice. That night, for the very first time, she was taught pleasure. Blunt, persistent fingers brought Jasper to screaming heights where the air was thin no matter how much she drew into her chest, then sent her crashing back down into a little death tangled in thick military-issued blankets and half-discarded armor.

It was a good night. It was strange and never spoken of again, but a good night nonetheless. Jasper found her place in this secret life of her brethren and it became part of her secret, too. This platoon taught her of the covert companionship of quartz soldiers and all the languages they spoke together. They spoke the language of fists and bared teeth, of bristled shoulders and growls. And, on rare occasions, they spoke the language of servile fingers in the dark of night.

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s silly, isn’t it?” Pearl said. “We gems long for connection, desire flesh, and gravitate toward fusion, and yet we are not allowed to have any of it except in the most illicit ways. We speak of it behind closed doors, hushed, like we are now.”

Jasper chuckled low enough to shake the arm of the chair Pearl perched upon. There was still a flush beneath the stripes on her face—it hadn’t relented since her candid retelling of her first time in the barracks. “We’re not supposed to. It’s just a distraction.”

“Ah, yes. How dare anything distract us from serving our diamonds?” Pearl smiled back. With a flourish, she whirled around on the arm of the chair until her feet propped squarely in Jasper’s lap, barely bypassing the communicator resting there. It must have been a charming sight: a revered jasper clutching a miniscule screen taking notes while her pearl sat side-saddle on her armrest, idle as could be. They smiled at each other, basked in the warmth of each other’s strangely comfortable company.

The expression on Jasper’s face sobered. Her eyes glanced down to her gloved hands, then back up to Pearl.

“What is it?”

No answer. Jasper was not always good at speaking her terms or her thoughts, but she made them known in other ways. There was emotion in the way her pupils went from pinpoints to sprawling black galaxies in a matter of moments when she met Pearl’s eyes.

Pearl had patience. She encouraged. “Well, go on.”

After another moment of hesitation, Jasper extended her gloved hands. “Go ahead. Take them off.”

At first, Pearl hesitated. She remembered what happened last time, not but a few days prior. Oh, how Jasper had thrown such a fit. That was different, though. This time, there was invitation and expectation. “Are you sure?” she asked.

Jasper nodded.

Pearl reached out and gingerly grasped the cuff of one glove. Her movement was slow and she didn’t dare pull too fast or too hard. The glove peeled away from the wrist, the heel of her palm, her knuckles, and then…

“Oh,” Pearl gasped.

Palm-up, Jasper presented her bare hand. The callouses and ruddy mottled color were the same as ever, but the shape was different. It was smaller, less imposing. For a moment, Pearl couldn’t quite figure out what was different about it, because it looked like almost every other hand she had ever seen, including her own. But it wasn’t Jasper’s hand. There were, in fact, no claws. Where the third knuckle of her fingers usually gave way to boney, antagonistic talons, now there was nothing but a shoddy stump. They looked soft and fleshy and far too short, and yet Pearl could not bring herself to criticize the gesture. She only cupped that hand in her own and stared. “You shapeshifted,” she murmured. “For me?”

Guilt crumpled Jasper’s forehead.

Pearl clasped her hand closer before she could recoil. “Don’t be like that. You wanted to show me, didn’t you?”

No answer, but at least Jasper met her eyes.

“Did you do the other one, too?”

“Yeah,” Jasper offered her other hand.

Indeed, all of Jasper’s armored digits were stunted down to virtually nothing. It was not clean work, and Pearl could not imagine they would stay this way for long. But she knew why Jasper had gone through all this trouble. They both knew. Pearl couldn’t help but let a smile curl to her lips as she thought about it. Quartz gems showed their feelings in the oddest ways sometimes. It was simultaneously subtle and blatant, it was practical, and above all, it was charming.

“Jasper,” Pearl said. “Do you want to touch me?”

She knew the answer. It had never been a question, really. But she wanted to hear Jasper give voice to it because it only gave Pearl power, more power, exquisite power.

Jasper shifted closer, one arm thrown around the back of the chair to bracket behind Pearl. Her body turned inwards, closing out the rest of the room from Pearl’s periphery. She might as well have closed off the rest of the universe, too. “Yeah. Thought I’d try and make it alright.”

Those large hands rested upon Pearl’s, still idle for inspection. It was as intimate as it was chaste. “It is alright,” Pearl drew Jasper’s hands closer, closer. She guided them to the crook of her waist and crooned in that way that made even Garnet shiver once upon a time. “You can touch me. If you do it right, I’ll let you touch me more.”

That incentive was all Jasper needed for inspiration to flare in her eyes. With a sharp inhale, her hands went from compliant to militant against the curves and planes of Pearl’s body. The size of them was overwhelming in a sense—Jasper could have wrapped her hands around Pearl’s abdomen with ease, could have snapped limbs on a whim. For a moment, it seemed like that was the route things were heading. Pearl barked her displeasure as Jasper hauled her closer with an annoyingly effortless tug. She landed with her knees planted on either side of Jasper’s hips. “Jasper!” Pearl pushed back. She braced her hands on the bulk of Jasper’s chest and thrust herself away, panic claiming her benevolence. How quickly things had soured—

Jasper’s hands shook. They skimmed over Pearl’s hips and the dip at the small of her back to cup her closer, press them together with a newfound temperance.

Boundaries. Jasper followed them when Pearl drew those lines in the sand. She just needed the lines drawn, needed reminders when her strength proved too much. Oh-so-many boundaries. Pearl would not let a gap between their bodies be one of them.

“Kiss me. Kiss me right here.” Pearl bared her neck to Jasper in all its pale glory. She said ‘kiss,’ but she meant something else, she meant something more carnal and possessive, something she could not put a name to until Jasper’s heat came upon her throat with lips and teeth and tongue. _Devour_ —that was it. She wanted Jasper to devour her there. Pearl’s fingers wove into fine plumes of hair as she grasped the back of Jasper’s head and pushed her closer, drawing her in. Jasper embraced her tighter in return and held on like she was afraid to let go.

“Jasper!” Pearl breathed.

There was a growl in reply. Jasper scorched a mark of desire into Pearl’s throat, a splotchy ring that matched the gold collar she still wore.

Pearl knew lovers. They had been a part of her life since Angel Quartz swept her up and made her sing. She could feel echoes of each and every one of them as Jasper kissed her way across Pearl’s throat and down her chest, huffing hot puffs of air from the pure excitement of it all.

_The prasiolite liked to kiss her there. The onyx liked to leave bruises here. Amethyst liked to leave scratch marks trailing right down to her_ —

Yes, that was all well and good. Past lovers, old lovers. Those memories sometimes blurred together, but now she was here with Jasper and there was a new memory to make. A good one this time. For both of them.

“Take me to your bed,” Pearl whispered.

“Nn?” Jasper looked up from where she feasted upon the jut of Pearl’s sternum. Her face was red and lazy curls of her own hair wandered across her forehead and cheeks, stuck there with dampness most likely from her own sloppy kisses. What she lacked in finesse, she made up for in tenacity. It was terribly endearing.

“Take me to bed,” she repeated. “I want to show you something.”

A look of surprise gave way to a look of determination. Jasper must have been eager, because she scooped Pearl up into her arms as she stood and then immediately ran them both into a wall.

“ _Oof!_ Careful, Jasper!”

A muffled grunt that sounded like ‘sorry’ answered her and then they were scrabbling against the wall to find the door. Hands searched. They searched for each other, for purchase on a shoulder, a waist, a throat—they searched for the door panel that would let them out of this room. Jasper palmed frantically at the panel, unable to see what she was doing with her face buried in Pearl’s shoulder and with her teeth clicking against the metal collar. It was only by sheer force of will and miraculous luck that Pearl’s nimble fingers managed to nudge beneath her fist and seek out the right button. The door hissed open and they rolled out and into the hallway.

Pearl tripped over Jasper’s feet, but didn’t even have the chance to fall before Jasper plucked her up again to pull her off her feet entirely. It was then that Pearl was reminded of what it was like to be in the arms of a quartz gem, an immovable force with all the strength of a stone goliath. She wrapped her legs around Jasper’s waist, grasped two palmfuls of her wild hair, and smiled to herself.

They smacked into another wall.

Pearl laughed as she tugged Jasper’s hair to direct her. “Left! Left, you silly rock—no, your _other_ left.” A strange tremor shook through her and it took a moment for her to realize Jasper was laughing, too. This bassy, ethereal pitch resonated somewhere inside Pearl’s gem and belly both. It bubbled up her throat in the form of more giggles.

A few more bumps and stumbles later, the welcoming comfort of Jasper’s wide and low bed was upon them. They landed together, Pearl on her back with Jasper’s weight pressing down on her. Kisses and toothy bites harvested her neck and chest, then down her ribs where her uniform exposed her.

Jasper pushed at the hem of Pearl’s skirt. She drew it up over her thighs and made hasty work of the few inches of fabric that covered her desire. In moments, Pearl’s uniform bunched at her waist leaving her bare. Her slim belly heaved with every breath she drew. The soft hill of her mons gave way to the split of her sex, still so shy and hidden away from Jasper’s view. Pearl knew that would not last for long. She saw the way Jasper eyed her, how she drew back for the mere lust of the view. She abandoned her meal of kisses for the opportunity to gaze upon her next feast and, oh, how the hungry fire in her eyes lit up when she saw it. Her tongue poked from her mouth to wet her lips in an unconscious, truly lascivious gesture.

Pearl put out a hand and caught Jasper by the forehead just in time. “Wait.”

It was like trying to control a beast. Jasper didn’t quite listen to the command until Pearl threaded her fingers into Jasper’s hair, gripped, and pulled her head back with force. Only then did her face turn up once more and her eyes met Pearl’s with some semblance of begrudging cognizance.

“Please,” Jasper said. “I want—”

“I said I was going to show you something. Don’t you want that?”

Jasper glanced down, then back up, as if weighing her options. The internal battle between instant gratification and earned reward clashed in her head. Impulsivity versus strategy.

“Come on,” Pearl decided to help with a little encouragement. She traced a line down Jasper’s chest. “Lie down for me.”

She still looked reluctant. “Is this going to be like last time?” The way Jasper eyed Pearl’s cunt so longingly was darling. She knew what she wanted and was not very good at hiding it. It was also clear she knew that Pearl could both give it and take it away.

Good.

“No,” Pearl said. In a second of weakness, she reached up and cupped the side of Jasper’s face. It was in that moment she knew they were to be nothing less than lovers this evening. When Jasper looked back at her unflinching, eyebrows buckled in curiosity and intent, they could be nothing else. “No, last time you proved yourself to me. This time, I want to enjoy you.”

“Enjoy…me?” Jasper looked as if the possibility had never occurred to her.

Perhaps it hadn’t. It was a sobering thought. Pearl often forgot just how badly Homeworld damaged all its gems, not just its pearls.

With a gentle smile, Pearl pushed at Jasper’s shoulder. “Lie down.”

She did. The bed creaked as Jasper rolled to the side to prop herself up on her elbows.

Pearl perched herself atop her, straddling the thinnest part of Jasper’s waist, which was still quite vast. She sat there with pride, her skirt still uselessly rumpled at the highest part of her hips. Under the guise of bracing herself, she planted both of her hands upon Jasper’s breasts, held firm and immobile in the confines of her uniform. Such a coy pearl she was. With half-lidded eyes, she looked down at Jasper. “Do you have any idea how strong you are?” she crooned.

Jasper looked from the hands shamelessly cupping her breasts to Pearl’s face, then back again. “Pretty strong,” she supplied.

Pearl’s laughter crescendoed into a melody of tittering notes. She could hear an echo of Sardonyx for the briefest of measures to remind her of where she drew her confidence. “Oh, you are, aren’t you? So strong. So _big_ …” With guile and ease, Pearl pulled one of Jasper’s breasts from its stuffy confinement behind the yellow diamond insignia. It bounded free. “They make gems like you to fight and to protect. The Diamonds have their purposes for you. But, oh, if _I_ had been the one to create you? Why, I would have done it for a whole different reason entirely.” Pearl released the second breast and tilted her head to admire her work.

Supple, but soft. A brute tank with a full figure of curves and muscle and fat and sinewy dimples—a whole territory to explore. Jasper was a creature with both calloused, over-worked hands and tender budding nipples. Her abdomen was padded generously until the exact moment when she tensed or stretched and then Pearl could see the outline of every single muscle that lay beneath in stalwart condition. A stud. Prime breeding stock. Pearl’s hips rolled in a little circle at the prospect.

_Not yet_ , she told herself. _Not this time_.

Jasper’s hands settled onto her thighs and Pearl’s pelvis clenched on reflex. Her body wanted to—

_Never again. She couldn’t ever do it again._

“I can’t have you in me,” Pearl blurted. She said this to herself as much as she said this to Jasper. It needed to be said. “We can’t do it like that.”

To her surprise, Jasper did not argue. She just kneaded at Pearl’s hips with blunt, demilitarized hands and nodded. “I know,” she said.” If you get with geode again, they’ll probably send you back to the Nursery. I don’t want that to happen.”

“I don’t want that to happen, either.”

Hands crept down to Pearl’s ass. They inched, as if Jasper was waiting to be scolded for being too bold. But where once claws had marred any enjoyment Pearl received from being squeezed, now she had soft hands that dug into the give of her flesh _just so_. Just right. Jasper’s hands grew brave and slipped beneath the hem of Pearl’s skirt. “But there are other ways. We’ve done them before. Other ways, right?”

Pearl groped Jasper right back. She leaned down into her face with a simpering smile because oh, Jasper was eager, eager for anything. “Right. Do you want me to show you one of my favorites?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Yes.”

Pearl laughed as she sat back up and continued to laugh as she rearranged herself to turn around. Still straddling Jasper’s waist, she had to look over her shoulder now to meet Jasper’s eyes. She wanted to be sure she was watching very, very closely.

Indeed, Jasper’s gaze was ravenous on the peek of Pearl’s shoulders, the diamond cutout at her waist, and the rumple of fabric that nestled at the very apex of her thighs. She watched the way Pearl rocked in a sensual, lazy rhythm, could probably feel the warm press of her naked quim on the plane of her belly through her uniform. Her breath came faster now, and that was when Pearl chose to grasp the hem of her skirt and drag it slowly, ever-so-slowly, up. The cup of her bottom was revealed first. Then the tight, round form of her ass. Finally, she settled the top of her skirt just above the dimples at the small of her back.

The groan from Jasper sounded winded, breathless.

Feeling altogether proud of herself, Pearl continued her game. “Do you want more?” She wriggled her hips just a little bit, just to tease, and hummed her satisfaction. Oh, having the upper hand was fun. Having Jasper slavish and needy beneath her was a treat.

It was also a precarious position.

Too soon, Jasper forgot to behave herself. Her hands grew renegade. She grasped Pearl by the hips and pulled her closer with ease. What treasures Pearl kept to herself were far too enticing to keep hidden for long. With two thumbs, Jasper spread Pearl apart. Like breaking past the supple rind of a fruit, Jasper spread her and revealed all the tantalizing edibles within. The tinted, hidden rim of her ass was bared for the consumption all at once. Jasper rumbled with approval, held Pearl still as she attempted to squirm away out of embarrassment. She wanted to _look_.

Once Jasper had her fill of admiring this part of Pearl, her thumbs shifted to spread her again. This time, she opened the petals of a lush flower, blue and flourishing. Nectar tucked into the furthest reaches glistened and Pearl sighed as Jasper gazed upon it. Her fingers slipped on the plush lips, forcing her to reach in again to unfold her secrets. It was a constant battle to keep Pearl’s wet quim open for Jasper’s enjoyment, but a battle she happily fought.

“You’re lewd,” Pearl accused.

“I know,” Jasper said. “But stars, you’re pretty.”

Pearl almost couldn’t hide the smile. Only once she realized Jasper couldn’t see her face did she give into her satisfaction and beam despite herself. She shuffled back a little further, bringing her ass precariously close to Jasper’s face. “Be careful what you wish for. You might just get it.”

“I want it.” Jasper was forever blunt and direct.

And so, with a teasing wiggle of her hips, Pearl took her throne.

Jasper was upon her in an instant. She could feel the angle of Jasper’s cut gem pressing up against the cleft of her buttocks while a hot mouth welcomed her cunt. She all but buried herself in Pearl, a difficult feat because Jasper was large and Pearl was quite a bit smaller, but by the diamonds, Jasper did try. Her hands weighed Pearl down by the hips as if Jasper was trying to smother herself. As if she knew she would die happy here.

“That’s it,” Pearl said. “You know what to do.”

There was nothing precise about Jasper’s approach to pleasure. Coordination, strategy, and grace were lost on her, as she much preferred the force of sheer starvation to fuel her tongue. Her breath panted out hot and intermittent. The slurp and pop of Jasper’s sucking lips against Pearl’s sopping folds were loud. Gratuitous. Messy. The thrill of Jasper’s teeth was always a threat, because somewhere behind that flicking tongue and those soft lips lay a line of viciously predatorial canines, but that was an _excitement_ that curled in Pearl’s belly. She liked knowing about it. She liked feeling the tantalizing press of teeth once in a while when Jasper bared them against her quim in delight.

Yes, this was a nice throne, a cathedra fit for a diamond, really. Claiming Jasper for herself was a good idea after all.

Pearl stretched forward, her back arching as her hands traveled down Jasper’s body. They roamed over her familiar stomach and hips and finally came to rest on the bulk of her thighs. Thick, masterfully carved thighs. Even through the material of Jasper’s uniform, she could see the indentations of muscle chiseled into shapes thicker than Pearl’s entire body, proof of the immense power stored there. But Pearl was not interested in Jasper’s thighs. She was much more interested in what lay between them.

“Jasper,” Pearl said.

There was no response. Not even a hitch in the slip-slip of the tongue that was on an intrepid excursion to explore the rim of her entrance.

“Jasper!”

Nothing.

With a sigh, Pearl sat up from her throne onto her knees and looked back at Jasper. “Jasper,” she said.

“Did I not do good?” was Jasper’s breathy response. Her face was a rosy red and her lips sparkled. There was concern on her face. There mere sight of her dishevel combined with such a genuine, worried reaction sent Pearl’s heart swooping. Inexplicably, she softened.

“Oh, Jasper, you’re doing wonderful,” Pearl tutted and couldn’t help but reach back to fuss with a lock of hair that had fallen across Jasper’s face. She pushed it back into place. “I only want you to get rid of your uniform. It’s in my way.”

“My—oh.”

There was a glow of warm light before the cascade. Rusty leather and fabric gave way to familiar nudity, like a curtain being drawn away to reveal a desert landscape of dunes chocked with striped veins of sun-soaked iron as far as the eye could see. And there, betwixt the rise of Jasper’s formidable thighs, lay the oasis Pearl searched for. She crawled forwards on her hands, stretching herself over Jasper’s body until they were parallel, skin-on-skin, and ran her fingers through the plume of white hair that peaked up toward her navel. Hidden there was a plump slit, a cleft where the tempting hint of labia and clit poked through. And so, much like Jasper had done to her earlier, Pearl kneaded with both hands to open her prize.

Glossy folds glued together with resinous shine parted to make way for Pearl’s gaze. The lips that framed them on either side were fat, lux, and they just barely fit in the cup of her palms. One pouting outer labia per hand because Jasper was big and Pearl liked her that way. She liked how _much_ of her there was.  

The deeper into Jasper’s core she looked, the more red freckles she found. Pearl had never noticed that before, but then again, she had never been this close. Tiny little red dots, all trailing right into the entrance they guarded. Suddenly, she had the urge to kiss each and every one.

Jasper tugged on Pearl’s hips to slide her further back. “I can’t reach you like that.”

“Sit up, then. I need to reach you, too.”

Much shuffling and huffing resulted. There was the disappearance of the rest of Pearl’s clothing and muttered directives. Pearl held on as Jasper shifted until she was propped up against the back of the bed.

“Better?” Pearl asked.

The answer came in the form of a tongue delving into her that sent a shiver down her spine.

Much better, indeed.

Now it was Pearl’s turn to feast and, oh, what a spread she had before her. It was times like this when Pearl could almost understand the human proclivity for hunger and how a starving man could look at a table laden with fine dishes aplenty and not know where to begin.

She began with one plump labia. She pulled it between her lips and sucked the sappy juice from it. Iron and musty evening sandstone filled her senses in a complete sensory immersion of _Jasper_ , Jasper—her scent, her taste, her lush desert palate. Even the vocal vibrations of her delight were an experience unique to a gem of her size. It all left her wanting more, so she took the other labia between her lips to suckle and savor the rush of her chosen lover again.

Her fingers traveled down towards the apex of Jasper’s cunt. They did not need to search very hard to find her clit, stiff and hiding beneath the dome of its hood. Pearl wanted to coax it out just a little bit. Not all the way out—because that could become a predicament all its own—but just enough to see it. From root to hidden tip, she traced a line with her tongue and hummed in satisfaction when Jasper’s hips responded with an involuntary surge upwards, as if to seek more. Yet Jasper’s clit still hid.

Well, she could hardly blame it. Nestled like a pithy acorn amidst all the comfortable, protective folds, it had a nice home. Pearl wouldn’t have wanted to come out, either.

“Promise me you’ll behave, now,” Pearl reminded. The muffled groan she received in response was answer enough.

With one finger on either side, Pearl pressed down gently to pop Jasper’s clit from its sheath. It sprang forth from hiding, as red and pretty as she remembered it to be. Where her fingers rested on either side, she could feel it throbbing with the rhythm of an excited heartbeat.

She gave it a kiss, right on the most sensitive bud. Jasper’s thighs leapt.

She gave it a lick to the same response.

She pulled it into her mouth, hood and all, and sucked

The curiously high-pitched whine that followed most certainly came from Jasper. It was not a sound Pearl had ever heard her make before, but there was no mistaking it was her. She felt a surge of victory as she doubled down and did it again.

This time, Jasper was not taken by surprise. She groaned, then promptly slipped a finger inside of Pearl’s quim and curled it forward in retaliation. It hit every single nerve to make Pearl sing.

So Jasper had her own tricks. This was not the first time they had their hands on each other, so perhaps that was to be expected.

It didn’t mean Pearl was going to make it easy for her.

Without missing a beat, Pearl pushed three fingers into Jasper. Her rebuttal. She needed three, Pearl was sure of it. She had seen what Jasper could take and she knew one of her slim fingers hardly phased her. Sure enough, she was right. With all the slick and the anticipation, her fingers sunk right in to the third knuckle without a hitch. The walls of Jasper’s cunt pounced with her rapid heart rate, embracing Pearl’s fingers readily. Inside, she was alive and hot, vigorously so. It reminded Pearl of the sweet allure of lava flow pouring over her hand and sucking her down.

Somewhere in her core beat the massive continuation of Jasper’s clit, like her own personal crystal heart. She could feel the pulse radiate from the depths to match the flutter of the tip pressed against Pearl’s lips. It felt, for a terrible moment, like she was kissing the tail of a dragon. Innocent and relatively harmless on this end, but if it turned from its lair and lashed out at her, she could be in a world of trouble.

Trust. She had to trust Jasper could control this. Wasn’t trust the first step to this anyway? It was what led them both here, sprawled end-to-end on a bed together, speaking with tongues and fingers. Desire and solace led them here, too, of course, but at the foundation of this temple they’d built together was solidarity. When had they built that? Pearl wondered. She couldn’t remember. There had never been a moment of clarity or decision until now.

Perhaps Jasper decided when she came back for Pearl in the Nursery. Maybe that was when Pearl had decided to trust, too.

Great, beautiful thighs closed around either side of Pearl’s head. She could feel them brushing against her cheeks as she sipped vigor from the chalice of Jasper’s cunt. Her lips plucked moans from Jasper like plucking roses from a garden. Effortless, beautiful, familiar. Pluck, pluck, pluck.

Four fingers worked Jasper into a state of mania. Even that wasn’t enough for her, so Pearl curled her fingers into a fist and pressed it into the sopping warmth that beckoned her. It became clear that everything she fucked Jasper with up until this point was nothing but preamble. This, this was finally large enough to elicit a visceral reaction from Jasper—her walls clenched, she gasped against Pearl’s sex.

Finally. Jasper met her match.

The battle was hard-fought. Jasper tried to keep her mouth busy with Pearl’s quim, tried to focus her attention beyond her own indulgence. She hummed between Pearl’s thighs, took a struggling breath, then continued to court Pearl’s clit with her tongue. Her head thrashed back involuntarily. Desperation. She tried to find Pearl’s quim again, tried to nestle against the warmth of it. She never made it that far. In surrender, she panted against the inside of Pearl’s calf and gripped a palm full of the bed in each hand in preparation for the end to come.

Those thighs started quivering. Pearl smiled with the knowledge that she would get to have Jasper first. Everything beneath Pearl shook as Jasper’s muscles jumped and she rumbled a pleasure-song all at once; it felt like the universe itself was suffering a collapse. Her cunt gripped at Pearl’s fist in a stuttering rhythm. There was a cry, the growing howl of a great intake of air, a shout, and then…

Jasper fell apart in the choked silence that followed. She twitched and sighed and every single overwrought muscle that had been wound up tight unraveled.

Gently, gently, she crumbled.

Slowly, slowly, she melted beneath Pearl’s body.

A low, satisfied moan broke the silence.

“You sound like you enjoyed that.” Pearl gingerly pulled her hand free. It was coated, fingertip to wrist, in a glaze.

Another groan. This one sounded like an attempted ‘yeah.’

Jasper’s lips were parted and plumped in the shape of desire. Around her head, her mane sprawled in a wide, white halo. Her brow was damp with sweat, her mouth and throat coated in a shiny layer of Pearl’s essence. There was a distinct absence of that predatory nuance in Jasper’s half-lidded gaze. Instead, she looked up at Pearl with content and warmth. Distant, moony eyes.

Pearl had seen that look before. Oh, no. She had seen it so many times across the span of millennia. It was the soft acquiescence of a gem who had fallen for her. A little guilt pulled at her heart, as if it were her fault. Maybe it was. Oh, no.

Before she had time to think further, everything shifted. Two arms came around her, swallowed her up, and the world tilted. Pearl didn’t know which way was up or down as Jasper took her into herself. She let it happen. Trust was a dangerous and beautiful thing.

When she looked up, she could only see Jasper’s face. Disheveled as she was, she was still majestic. Wild hair, perfectly framed cheeks and jaw. Eyes that smoldered with an emotion Pearl recognized—another pang of regret hit.

Jasper sat upright with her legs crossed. Pearl fit in the cradle of her body, tucked in protective arms. Nothing existed outside of this bubble they made for themselves.

“Oh,” Pearl breathed.

“’M not done with you yet,” Jasper said, far too amiable to be a threat.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You never gave me the chance to hear you make those noises I like.”

Pearl’s hands felt too idle. She sent them on a journey up the planes of Jasper’s chest, her neck, her face and was delighted when Jasper leaned into the touch. “Well, now you have me. I’m all yours.”

A hand gingerly nudged between her thighs. It searched for her, searched for her entrance, and Pearl happily let it in. She sighed as a finger found its home inside her, whimpered as Jasper’s thumb massaged circles over the root of her clit. Her sex was already primed and needy—it did not take long for Jasper to find those noises she sought after. They were pulled from Pearl’s throat in due time.

Jasper watched her, too. Every time Pearl cracked her eyes open, she saw her there looking back, hinged upon her every movement, every breath. “That’s it,” she said. “Want you to feel good…”

Her fingers roamed across Jasper’s face just to feel her, hold her. “Put another one in me. I can t-take another.”

And that was how Pearl earned a second finger. Without those claws, she could finally appreciate just how big Jasper’s hands were. Thick and impossible to ignore, not particularly dexterous, but when those fingers curled inside her, they sent a jolt of pleasure right down to Pearl’s toes. By now, Jasper knew that perfect spot well and she abused it as often as she could. A particularly rowdy jerk of her hand had Pearl crying out.

“Yes?” Jasper asked.

“ _Yes!_ ”

The focus that settled upon Jasper’s face was as terrifying as it was lovely. It was the look of a soldier about to go in for the kill. Determination mixed with a crazed untethering.

_She was going to make Pearl come._

A whimper escaped Pearl as she realized what she was due for. By the stars, she wanted it. It was going to be overwhelming and leave her shaken, but that was the boon of playing with a quartz gem. She knew as much by now. So Pearl gazed into the face of what was about to happen to her and gave herself over to it. She would let her warrior take her.

The fingers inside her beckoned, bullied, coaxed her from within and it wasn’t long before Pearl gripped two fistfuls of Jasper’s hair and crumpled it in her grasp as she cried out. Her legs kicked in different directions, searching for something to push against, something so she could cant her pelvis up and give Jasper everything, all of her. Her hips rose in primal invitation.

“ _Ah!_ ” Pearl’s song grew pitchy.

“That’s right, let me hear you, that’s right—”

The moment before the plunge, Pearl recalled seeing that look in Jasper’s eyes again. The warm look, the darling look, the vulnerability that neither of them expected. It stayed with her as the world went white.

Release was welcoming, like the company of an old friend. It wrapped Pearl up, swept her off her feet, and whispered tempting things about love and devotion in her ear. As seductive as ever. For now, Pearl let it seduce her and fell willingly into the embrace.

A pillow swaddled her cheek. A warm body guarded her back. Pearl found herself perfectly nestled into the scoop of Jasper’s body and had to wonder how long she’d been here like this. It was quiet. Jasper’s breath against the nape of her neck was even and shallow and the hand propped on her hip was lax.

“Jasper?” Pearl whispered into the dark.

It earned her the smallest of noises in recognition, a tiny groan in the back of Jasper’s throat. The fingers at her hip stretched to life once more, only to nudge Pearl just a little closer. She could feel the hair of Jasper’s mons tickle at the back of her thighs and knew they were both still naked as ever.

Many times, Pearl had fallen into a restful quiescence next to lovers like this. It was not practical by any means, but the ease and intimacy of it all brought her back again and again. This time was no different. Pearl closed her eyes and shuffled just a little more snugly against Jasper’s body to bask in this afterglow.

Comparatively, Jasper had been relatively polite in that moment, for the longer Pearl remained quiescent, the more she found herself buried under a mountain of quartz soldier. It started with a single arm flung over her side. Then Pearl awoke to find herself pinned and lost in a sea of impossibly dense hair. At one point, she found herself crushed underneath what had to be the entirety of Jasper’s weight to the point where she could not even wheeze out a gasp. The longer she spent in Jasper’s quiescent arms, the more she felt she was becoming one of Steven’s plush toys he often hugged, smothered, and drooled on in his sleep.

The last straw was when Jasper began breathing directly into her ear.

“Alright,” Pearl announced. She scrabbled for purchase against Jasper’s arms and began to extricate herself from the tangle. “Alright, that is enough of that.”

She managed to extricate her head and one flailing arm before Jasper woke. Jasper had the most confused expression on her bleary face. She blinked twice and held on a little tighter. “Where’re you going?”

“You’ve been laying on top of me!”

“Oh.” Jasper rolled off. One of her arms remained tucked under Pearl’s body, though it went more slack.

Finally, freedom. “That’s better. You are…very clingy when you’re quiescent, do you know that?”

“I do now,” she said. A pause. Then, cautiously, “You don’t like it.”

Well, now Pearl felt bad. Jasper probably didn’t have the opportunity to indulge in physical connection often. For a gem who by nature craved physical and social bonds, Homeworld was determined to keep her isolated from all of that. “It’s fine, really. You’re just a lot bigger than me.”

A satisfied smirk ticked on Jasper’s lips. She was big and she knew it, she liked being reminded. It looked for a moment like she was getting ready to make another quip before she stopped. A thoughtful, sullen look crossed her features.

Pearl waited for it to pass. It didn’t.

“I uh…I’m gonna have to go on a mission soon,” she said. Couldn’t even look Pearl in the eye when she said it. “Found out yesterday morning.”

Strange. Pearl could have sworn she felt her heart sink. “Oh,” she said. “Well, alright. How long will you be gone?”

Jasper looked like she was trying to mask physical pain when she said, “Couple years. Maybe a decade.”

“A decade?! W-what?” Pearl pushed herself up onto her knees and looked down at Jasper (who still wouldn’t even look at her), stammering. “Well, then you’re taking me with you, right?”

“No,” Jasper suddenly became grave, her voice rumbling low and commanding. “No, you can’t come. It’s too dangerous for you. Diamonds, it’s dangerous for _me_. You stay here.”

“Dangerous for me? In case you’ve forgotten, Jasper, I helped lead an entire rebellion against the Diamonds, fought my way through every Homeworld soldier they threw at us, and I won, so you don’t get to tell me what’s dange—”

Jasper sat up in bed. Her expression was grave.

Pearl pressed her lips together and frowned.

“Even I don’t want to go. I have to be careful. If I bring you, I could lose you. It’s not the battle I’m worried about. Do you understand?” Jasper’s tone was surprisingly soft, like she just wanted Pearl to hear her.

Pearl’s voice was small and she folded her arms over her bare chest. “What am I supposed to do here while you’re gone?”

“Whatever you want. Whatever you do.”

Skepticism and unimaginable scorn burned in Pearl’s gaze. She was not impressed.

“Wait. Just hold on, let me—” Jasper rolled out of bed and rushed from the room, leaving Pearl sitting alone, sucking on the insides of her cheeks.

Wonderful. Truly typical. Downright unabashedly rude. Jasper wooed her, fucked her, and now was going to leave her here alone while she went about the galaxy of her own accord. Perhaps Pearl had become far more attuned to human concepts of time during her stay on Earth, but even a single year sounded unbearably long to be trapped here in the confines of this apartment.

Jasper returned with a small, electronic communicator clutched in her hands. She approached Pearl cautiously, beseechingly, as if afraid she would lash out. “Here, this is for you.”

Still fuming, Pearl accepted it. She pursed her lips. “It’s a communicator.”

“Yeah, I had Peridot make this for you. It’s one of her old communicators she fixed up. It’s yours.” Jasper winced and rubbed the back of her neck. “You’re not supposed to have it, but I didn’t want to leave you here without one. So you can always call me if you want to. I want you to check up with me once in a while so I know you’re okay.”

A little of the anger melted away as Pearl looked down at the device. It was clearly an older model and the edges were still rough from the welding done to seal it shut once the repairs were made, but it was probably fixed on short notice. It was actually a little thoughtful. “Thank you,” she muttered. “I’ll do that, then. So you know I’m still alive, I suppose.”

“Hey…” Jasper tucked a knuckle under Pearl’s chin and tilted her head up to meet her gaze. “I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to. I wouldn’t leave you here if I didn’t have to, either. It’s…it’s just Yellow Diamond trying to put me back in line, alright? She doesn’t like that I got you and she’s just doing this to show me who’s boss. I’ll do this mission, make Yellow Diamond happy, then I’ll come back here and take you everywhere with me. Every mission. Promise.”

There was a sincerity and a candor in those words. Pearl believed them. She closed her eyes and pulled the communicator to her chest. “Okay.”

“Maybe I’ll get to come back early if I fight really hard. Who knows?” She cupped Pearl’s cheek in her palm. “I’ll fight hard for you.”

This was the life of a soldier, Pearl reminded herself. They went off to war, they stayed until the job was done, and then they came back for a little while only to do it all again. She shouldn’t have been surprised by this. And yet it still left Pearl with this feeling of helplessness. The one thing that had been protecting her from Homeworld’s cruel maw was about to leave, possibly to another galaxy entirely. It was difficult to stay mad at Jasper when she thought about it like that.

The next few days, Jasper spent a lot of time at her console mapping a course to her mission destination and making various calls to book passage on ships that would get her there. From what Pearl could discern from her eavesdropping, this place was far off the beaten path in a solar system that had been resistant to Homeworld’s conquering influences for quite some time. It was a thorn in Yellow Diamond’s side with local fauna both mean and sturdy enough to challenge even the quartz soldiers sent to occupy it. Pearl couldn’t glean more than that, but she planned to snoop through more of Jasper’s correspondences once she left. Perhaps that would tell her more.

The obligatory dozen or so calls a day from Peridot doubled once Jasper called her to tell her that she was responsible for Pearl once she left and should come check on her every once in a while.

From the sound of things, Peridot was about as pleased with that arrangement as Pearl was. There was a lot of yelling.

The day came for Jasper to ship out. The leather duffle bag sat empty and waiting by the door while Jasper finished a few more messages at the console.  Pearl watched from a distance with a frown. She didn’t like lingering for things like this.

“Be good,” Jasper told her, gave her a little pat on the cheek as she hefted the duffle bag over one shoulder. She stood in the doorway as long as she could, but eventually she had to turn and breech that threshold. Jasper walked away on one side while Pearl stood on the other.

Now Pearl waited.


	15. Chapter 15

Earth | Facet 9 “Beta” | Cut 9NC

Type: Jasper

Era 1 Cycle 8950042

Disciplinary Records:

_Date 03-42 Infraction 0001: Violation of curfew. [Code 23B]_

_Date 19-42 Infraction 0002: Detectable dissent with means for correction. [Code 02J]_

_Date 20-42 Infraction 0003: Violation of volume ordinances. [ Code 44L Section B]_

_Date 20-42 Infraction 0004: Resisting correctional attempts. [Code 12A]_

_Date 20-42 Infraction 0005: Resisting correctional attempts. [Code 12A]_

_Date 20-42 Infraction 0006: Resisting correctional attempts. [Code 12A]_

Pearl scrolled to the next page of the document. Like Amethyst, Jasper was birthed of the Earth’s crust. Unlike Amethyst, she had been born early enough to fight and lose the war for Earth. Only two years after Jasper was stationed on a perimeter planet, she was transferred to another colony in a different system. The report cited ‘behavioral issues’ as the motivation for reassignment. The agate overseeing her wrote about Jasper overstepping her boundaries, speaking out of turn, and tardiness for drills. The few infractions on her record under her first agate told a story of her bull-headed temperament and independence, both undesirable traits for a gem who was bred to stay in line and do as they were told. But those infractions were few compared to the glaring red marks of insubordination that marred Jasper’s record the day she was transferred.

_Date 134-44 Infraction 0027: Violation of volume ordinances. [ Code 44L Section B]_

_Date 134-44 Infraction 0028: Resisting correctional attempts. [Code 12A]_

Her name was Elimia Agate and apparently discipline was her forte.

_Date 139-44 Infraction 0386: Resisting correctional attempts. [Code 12A]_

_Date 140-44 Infraction 0387: Resisting correctional attempts. [Code 12A]_

The records showed multiple infractions per day. Punishment abounded. Pearl chewed on the tips of her fingers as she read further, feeling as though she was watching the life being strangled out of Jasper through the lens of these old records. Jasper fought back at first. So many citations, some of them clearly incited out of Jasper’s own defiance. Then came the punishments. Fewer infractions occurred in the days, weeks, that followed, as if Jasper knew she couldn’t take anymore. But as she built up her strength and willpower, she lashed out again and a slew of citations scrawled in neat rows down the screen once more.

They were breaking her. Pearl had seen the same thing happen on Earth once. She’d seen it in a documentary about a rancher taming a young stallion—a show Steven had watched with her once upon a time. That bright, heady stallion on the screen had bucked and trampled and fought for a long time, but the rancher had more power and a whip. He kept the stallion running until eventually he wore it out. The attempts to resist became few and far between, weakened, and finally the spirit left the creature’s eyes. Tamed and broken.

_Date 34-90 Infraction 5056: Failure to address proper rank and title. [Code 86P]_

_Date 02-03 Infraction 5057: Tardiness of approximately [0.87 seconds]. [Code 053A]_

Then, one day, the citations stopped. No more defiance. No more red marks on the ledger. Only the numerous bland logs of Jasper’s mission accounts as she was transferred from platoon to platoon.

Her name was Elimia Agate and she was the one who tamed Jasper.

Her name was Elimia Agate and Jasper was about to serve her once more. This was the gem for whom Jasper was about to serve her decade-long mission. Yellow Diamond chose this as Jasper’s punishment; she must have known. There was too much cruel purpose behind the mission for it to be anything else but a penance, a reminder of Jasper’s place.

Jasper accepted her fate without protest. Of course she did—she knew what it would mean if she acted out of turn. That knowledge had literally been beaten into her over and over again for millennia.

She just told Pearl to wait here, she’d be back soon.

Pearl gripped the control panel and pulled the chair closer to the console. Her lips tightened as something like fury overcame her. The fire that burned in her chest during her rebellion days stoked back from embers as she thought about all the things Homeworld got away with doing to the gems that served it. The abuse, the manipulation, the propaganda. The things she fought against all those years ago still hadn’t gone away.

She wondered if Jasper was angry, too. Maybe she had just accepted it, rationalized it. Maybe they beat the anger out of her.

Maybe she thought she deserved to be beaten.

Whether Jasper was angry or not became irrelevant as Pearl realized she was angry on Jasper’s behalf. It didn’t help that she became so immersed in accessing the volumes of Jasper’s records that she didn’t even realize she’d spent days in front of the console. Reading, stewing.

Homeworld was an amorphous concept. Trying to throw ire at Homeworld was like trying to throw her spear at smoke—it would do nothing but pass right through.

Yellow Diamond, on the other hand…

Yellow Diamond was a physical entity. She had a body, a mind, a soul. She had a face, too; Pearl saw it when the smoke cleared. Yellow Diamond was not Homeworld, but she certainly held several of the strings that puppeteered it. In Jasper’s case, Yellow Diamond was the root of everything that had ever happened in her life after The War. Every line of command in Jasper’s logbook stair stepped its way up to Yellow Diamond’s temple. Every punishment, every beating, every mission.

Some gems liked to believe that the Diamonds could not be destroyed.

Pearl knew better. She’d seen a diamond shatter before her very eyes and felt the vibration of shards splitting into a thousand pieces run up her arm and into her chest.

She couldn’t throw a spear at Homeworld, but she could throw a spear at a diamond.

Her communicator blipped.

Pearl rubbed the sting from her eyes with the heel of her hand and dragged herself from the realm of old Homeworld logs. She forgot she even had a communicator.

_Are you there?_

It was from Peridot.

Pearl sighed and looked up at the ceiling. She hoped that when she looked back down, the message would miraculously disappear.

It didn’t. The message was as stubborn and persistent as Peridot in person.

The very idea of replying had Pearl wrinkling her nose in distaste, yet what choice did she have? The alternative was dealing with Peridot face-to-face when she came over to see why Pearl wasn’t responding.

_Yes._

Several midnights must have passed since Pearl first sat at Jasper’s console and bypassed security to snoop into her most personal files, because her legs felt stiff when she stood up. She stretched, yawned, and contemplated laying down for quiescence when the communicator blipped again.

_Call Jasper. She just complained that you haven’t contacted her yet._

Blip.

_I think she’s worried._

Blip.

_It is not logical._

Blip.

_You should still contact her._

Pearl _did_ promise to call. Why Jasper hadn’t contacted her directly and instead went through Peridot was a mystery, however.

Perhaps she was shy. Maybe she thought Pearl was still angry with her for leaving so suddenly. Pearl was still angry, alright, but not entirely at Jasper. It was difficult to be angry with her after reading those logs. She was about to reply when another message came through.

_If you are not sure what to do, just show her your ass. She likes that._

Pearl audibly scoffed and slammed the communicator down a little too hard. Peridot was the absolute _worst_. Yet when Pearl settled down on her cot later that evening with her communicator in hand, she did give the comment some thought. Her first instinct was to primp, lie on the bed, and look alluring and sweet as she often did when contacting lovers before. That came almost naturally to her. She was still teasing a lock of hair into perfect arrangement against her gem when she realized what she was doing and felt silly for it.

It was stupid. She and Jasper weren’t really lovers—Pearl drew the line in the sand there. What would looking seductive for a call with Jasper even do for either of them? It wasn’t like Pearl would sit there on the bed and touch herself so Jasper could watch.

For Garnet she would, for Amethyst she would. For Jasper, the idea seemed absurd.

No. They had a single amiable bout of sex before Jasper slogged off to her mission—a mission she had known about _before_ pulling Pearl into bed, no less—and that did not make them lovers. Remembering that Jasper had essentially seduced her and left her reminded Pearl that it was okay to still be at least a little angry at Jasper. Rude.

Pearl fluffed her hair with impatient fingers. This was stupid.

She laid back and pulled her skirt down so it covered at least some of her thighs. Ridiculous.

The pop of her hip was unintentional. It made her look like she was lounging there on the cot, which was contrary to her intention, but it was too late. She pressed the button to connect to Jasper’s frequency and there was no time to shuffle around.

Jasper connected almost immediately. A window popped up on the screen with the image of Jasper looking right back at her. It only showed her head, shoulders, and part of her arms as she held the screen above her. Perhaps she was on a bed of some sort. She certainly looked like she was lying down, as her hair fanned out in all directions.

“Hey,” Jasper’s voice came through.

“Hello,” Pearl said.

The silence that came over the line was an awkward one. The word ‘ridiculous’ once again popped into Pearl’s mind.

“Peridot told me to call—”

“I told Peridot to tell you to—”

They fumbled and talked over each other and their conversation once again came to a stuttering halt.

Jasper looked abashed. “There’s a delay,” she said. “I’m uh, pretty far from Homeworld right now.”

“Are you there yet?”

This time, Pearl could hear her words relayed on Jasper’s side of the line and confirmed that, yes, there was a terrible delay in their communication. Wonderful. As if this weren’t painful enough.

“No, I’ve got another ship to hop on tomorrow. It’s a long ways out.”

“Oh,” Pearl nodded.

“Yeah, they’ve got me in this little cubby. Look at this thing.” Jasper turned the screen around and flashed Pearl a view of her accommodations. It was nothing like what she’d had on Peridot’s ship. The bed took up most of the room. It was too small for Jasper—Pearl could see her boots hanging off the end of it. There was a foot or two of space for Jasper to stand alongside the bed, an open doorway with no door, and that was it. They may as well have packed Jasper into a box and shipped her that way.

“It’s very small,” Pearl agreed.

Jasper turned the camera back around and shrugged. “I’ve been in smaller. But you’re probably enjoying having the run of my place to yourself. Keeping out of trouble?”

Pearl’s impulse was to lie and tell Jasper that, yes, she had been the perfect little angel this whole time. She’d done nothing but keep the place tidy and chase after dust motes. Curiosity and a pinch of defiance, however, had Pearl opting for the alternative. “No,” she put on a coy face.

“No?” Jasper raised both eyebrows.

“No, I’ve been spending every minute I have digging into your data logs and accessing every file you have on there. It’s been very educational. I hope you don’t mind.”

To her surprise, Jasper just laughed. Her shoulders shook. “Well, you’re my pearl, so I guess it’s only fair. I figured you’d do something like that while I was gone.”

“Well, I did. And I’m not sorry about it.” Pearl puffed with a mixture of indignation and pride. She could see her cheeks tinge a dark blue in the image on her screen.

“Yeah, but are you okay, though? Are you safe? No one’s seen you or tried to come after you, right?”

The change of topic was sudden. It caught Pearl off guard. Well, that and the sincerity in Jasper’s voice. Her concern was genuine, her intensity was enough that Pearl got a sense the whole reason for their contact was so that Jasper could be sure of her safety. She didn’t know quite how to feel about this yet. “I, well, yes. I mean no. I mean, I’m fine. I don’t think anyone is trying to come after me.”

A line of concern etched into the space between Jasper’s brows. “And you stay away from the windows when you’re out there training with your spear and all, right?”

“I haven’t even been training,” Pearl said. “I promise, I’ve been staying safe. You think I want someone to come in here and—and _abduct_ me? I’ve had quite enough of that lately, thank you very much.”

The expression on Jasper’s face darkened. This time, the long pause between their exchange was not just due to delay. “You mean me, don’t you? What I did.”

Oh, no. They had to have this conversation now, like this? Pearl’s finger hovered over the ‘DISCONNECT’ button and yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She still had to look away from the screen when she said, “Yes. You took me from my home. I had to go with you or you were going to hurt St—” she caught herself, “—people I care about. I couldn’t let that happen. And so here I am.”

“I can’t undo it,” Jasper said.

“I know. Would you if you could?”

Jasper gave it some thought. Her lower lip tucked inwards as she contemplated the present and future, reality and whimsy. “No. I’d still do it. I like you too much.”

“That’s selfish.”

She shrugged again. “I don’t get nice things too often.”

Pearl brought the screen close to her face and hissed, “I’m not a _thing_.”

“But you are nice. And if it’s selfish for me to want you, then I don’t care. I do anyway.”

“Yes, well, right now _you’re_ not very nice,” Pearl countered. Her voice was beginning to get pitchy with annoyance. “We—we had sex. And then you just left. You knew you had to leave and yet you were just fine with taking me and then leaving me. That’s _rude_ , Jasper. Very, very rude.”

That little line of concern on Jasper’s brow came back. She appeared to be thinking very hard. “Did you not like it? Was it bad?”

It was enough for Pearl to throw her head back with a noise of exasperation. Sometimes Jasper was dense. “No! It was fine, the sex was fine. I even _wanted_ it. I liked it. But I was actually getting used to you a little bit, I was letting you get closer, and then you just left. No warning or anything. You made me feel secure and stable like we were making some actual progress together, and now I’m stuck here for who knows how long, waiting for you to get back!”

Jasper’s gaze avoided the screen in the most culpable display yet.

“Don’t you understand how difficult it is for me to accept you?” Pearl said. “The fact that I even like you at all is a cosmic miracle. After all you’ve done, somehow I still do. And for the record, it is very rude to have sex with someone and then just _leave_.”

Jasper accepted her scolding in silence. Only once Pearl finished did she offer a response. “I didn’t _want_ to go.”

Sometimes, Jasper could truly look pitiable. When the brash confidence in her voice softened and the intensity in her eyes grew tentative, she looked lost. Pearl found she was inexplicably weak to it. “I know,” she said. “I saw where you’re going. Or, rather, who you’re going to.”

That got Jasper’s attention. Gone was the glimpse of vulnerability—her eyes narrowed. “What do you know about that?”

“Elimia Agate. She wasn’t your first agate, but she was the one that broke you. Yellow Diamond is sending you back to her probably because she thinks you deserve it. You probably even think you deserve it, don’t you?”

The expression on Jasper’s face held firm, refusing to budge lest she display emotion, any emotion at all.

“It’s interesting,” Pearl continued, growing bolder by the second. “What you did to me on the ship is so much like what she did to you, in a way. Homeworld thinks the best way to imbue gems with compliance is to shackle them and make them suffer until they lose the will to fight it anymore. That’s what they did to you. Isn’t that what you tried to do to me?”

Jasper stared. Bristled.

“You can probably tell by now that it didn’t work on me. I wonder—did it really work on you? Or are you just pretending, too?”

Shock, horror, agitation all flashed on Jasper’s face in succession. Discomfort, recoil, doubt. Obstinance. Then anger. “I’m a Homeworld soldier,” Jasper growled. “I do what I have to do.”

Even through the communicator screen, Jasper was terrifying when she bared her teeth. Pearl was glad they were not in the same room together, because it would have been all the more difficult to stand up to her like this. Through a screen, it was easier to antagonize.

“I’m a _good_ soldier,” Jasper pressed. “I’m not a traitor like you. I’m _good_. They fixed me.”

“Fixed you?”

She let out a barked laugh. “You’ve read the reports. I had the misfortune of being made on Earth. But now look at me. Look at what I’ve become. _I’m a good soldier._ ”

Jasper kept saying that. Pearl wondered why it was so important for her to be a good soldier. Was it pride? Purpose? Was it simply that they had given her no other choice?

_If you’re told something enough, you start to believe it._

Pearl had been there once. She believed what they told her for a long time. It was difficult to shake those shackles, especially once they made her feel like she earned her place: a _good_ pearl.

She had antagonized enough today. “You are a good soldier, Jasper,” Pearl relented. “But I think you’re even more than that.”

Jasper immediately scoffed. “What? Tell me, what else do you think I am?”

Pearl smiled. She made sure Jasper met her eyes she said, “I think you’re _good_.”

Confusion and apathy curled on Jasper’s lips. It looked like she didn’t quite know how to respond. Probably for the best, though. Pearl didn’t want to start an argument. Instead, she planted a seed.

“Was there anything else you required of me today, Jasper? I think this call has been sufficient to prove that I am alive and well in your absence,” Pearl said. Her voice was light, pleasant, impervious to chastisement.

“No,” Jasper murmured. “That will be all.”

Pearl disconnected, feeling victorious. Jasper had potential. She was growing. Now that Pearl saw the red river of Jasper’s history laid out before her, it was much easier to understand her. Her path was carved into her with each lash of a whip, and when those grooves ran deep it was difficult to escape. Few things in life were more convincing or motivating than fear. That was why Homeworld chose such tactics to keep their order. Fear was cheap to manufacture, long-lasting, and easy to maintain. Such a strong, base emotion could drive almost any gem to act.

There were other emotions, however. A rare handful of them could even overcome fear with a power that Homeworld desperately wished to avoid. Pearl often heard the Diamonds refer to these emotions as ‘dangerous’ and ‘primal.’ They weren’t wrong, of course. They weren’t wrong at all.

Pearl lay on her cot with thoughts hovering around her head like little stars. They fell in her hair, across her face, along the grooves of her pillow.  The communicator remained off, tucked against her chest as she debated how she would handle Jasper as they went on this decade-long voyage apart. She thought about the Jasper that walked out the door and tried to think of the Jasper she wanted to come back to her when this was all said and done.

Elimia Agate was a powerful gem with the strength and brutality to break even the most rebellious of quartz gems. She was the best at what she did.

Pearl, well, she had a few tricks up her sleeve that would put Elimia to shame.

Maybe the next time she called Jasper, she would demonstrate.

 

* * *

 

The worst thing about being so far from Homeworld was being increasingly far from civilization. The last ship was so old that the captain kept a stack of printed repair manuals in the cockpit. ‘Just in case,’ she said.  

Jasper appreciated Peridot a little more after that trip.

The next ship she chartered didn’t even have a stable energy core—it instead had two faulty cores that the crew kept trading in and out when one would putter to a stop—and she was pretty sure she saw at least one of the levers in the loading bay held together with nothing but tape and a sign that said ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ above it.

Jasper was very thankful for Peridot.

At least the view was nice. Jasper spent a lot of her time in the common area to savor one of the only windows in the old vessel. Watching the stars go by helped to fend off boredom and remind her that, in the grand scheme of the universe, a couple years out here in the middle of nowhere was nothing.

The communicator at her hip pinged. Jasper moved to answer the incoming call, but hesitated when she saw who it was from.

Pearl.

A rush of mixed feelings bubbled up as Jasper remembered the last time they talked. Why Jasper ever thought owning a pearl would be a simple task was beyond her. Pearl was anything but simple. She made things complicated, made Jasper feel confused in all sorts of ways. Sometimes she felt good when she was around her, sometimes she felt shame. What was it going to be this time?

Reluctantly, Jasper answered the call. “Hey, P—”

The voice seized in Jasper’s throat as she came face-to-face with an image of Pearl with a distinct lack of clothing on her top half. Maybe she had nothing on her bottom half, too. Jasper didn’t know—the image didn’t go down that far. But she did know that there was Pearl, there were breasts, and Jasper was very much still in a public space where anyone could see what she was doing. That realization jolted her into action.

“I gotta call you back,” she slurred and jammed her finger against the ‘DISCONNECT’ button.

“Alright well, I—” Pearl didn’t even have time to finish her sentence before the call ended and Jasper swiveled in place to make sure no one saw what just happened. To her relief, the room was still vacant. A few crew members talked in one of the adjoining hallways outside of the common room, but there was no one else around.

Good. Stars, that was close.

In an effort to look natural, Jasper half-walked, half-jogged her way back to her room. Her face was very red.

Pearl called her naked. No one ever called Jasper naked.

Well, there was Peridot, but Peridot didn’t count. Did she? Maybe she did.

Practically no one ever called Jasper naked.

She couldn’t close the door to her room fast enough. It was as small as her room on the last ship, but at least this room had a door she could close. She was thankful for that as she fumbled with her communicator once more.

Maybe she ought to also be naked. Was that how this worked? Maybe that would look too eager. Pearl could just be calling to give Jasper a glimpse of what she was missing all the way out at the edge of the galaxy. It could be a means of punishing her for having sex and then leaving, which was an offense Jasper didn’t even know about until Pearl scolded her.

Jasper decided to remain stoic for now. She had a lot of practice pushing her desires away. Now was the time to put that to the test. She sat down on the bed, opened up Pearl’s line, connected, and then waited for an answer.

It came quickly. The image window popped up again with the same view from before: Pearl sprawled on her back amid familiar pillows and sheets. For the first time, Jasper realized that Pearl was not on her cot in the storage room. She was on Jasper’s bed, making herself at home.

“You certainly took your time,” Pearl said.

“I had to get somewhere private. You’re very…” Jasper finally allowed herself to glance at Pearl’s breasts where they peeked over the bottom edge of the screen. They lay flattened against her chest, but her nipples still perked in defiance, the color of Pearl’s lips. They were quite lovely. “Uh.”

“I’m what?”

Damn Pearl for sapping every ounce of power Jasper had with just a few coy words and a simpering look. Where did she get this from? Her confidence, her technique, her grace bespoke of millennia of experience where Jasper had none. Pearl wallowed in her sexuality with a comfort and ease that made Jasper jealous as she sat there on the edge of her bed, pressing her thighs together and willing herself not to give in so soon. “You’re naked. What, uh…what’s that about?”

“This?” Pearl dragged a palm along the contour of her ribs, just barely brushing past a nipple. “Oh, it’s just my way of giving you something nice. I know the last time we spoke, I made you a little upset.”

Did she? Jasper made the executive decision to conveniently forget. “It’s fine,” she said. “I didn’t mind.”

Pearl cupped a hand to her mouth as she laughed. She looked happy there, reclined and carefree, and just looking at her like that made something flop in Jasper’s chest.

“Why are you looking at me like you’ve never seen me naked before?”

“You’ve never _called_ me naked before.”

“I suppose not. But I expected you would know what to do.” Pearl looked Jasper up and down. Even through the screen, Jasper felt entirely scrutinized, like nothing could escape her gaze. “You’re still dressed.”

This was a siren’s call if Jasper ever heard one. It sounded so promising and alluring that she almost obeyed without a second thought (Pearl liked it when she obeyed), but then she gave pause.

Their last conversation was a stark reminder of where they both stood. It made Jasper remember things she had done and made her remember why Pearl had a right to avoid her. Thinking about the ship and thinking about laying hands on Pearl again and again made Jasper wish she really could forget it all, but Pearl clearly didn’t forget and so neither should she.

Accountability: a soldier was always accountable for the things they did, good or bad, selfish or selfless. Pearl called her a good soldier.

“Why are you acting like this?”

Pearl’s seductive expression loosened into something like shock for a moment before pulling back into a simper. “Like what?”

Accommodating? Eager to please? Absolutely pearl-like and yet nothing like Pearl at all? It was difficult for Jasper to find the appropriate words to describe what felt so wrong. Pearl often made it difficult to find the right words. The frown on her face deepened. “Last time you told me how hard it was for you to get used to me. I abducted you. I hurt you. I guess I thought it would go away after a while, but I think I now know that it won’t.” She chewed on her lower lip, unable to look at the screen. She didn’t want to see Pearl’s face. “I think that’s one thing I like about you, though. You tell me the truth right to my face. I don’t have to guess at how it is, I _know_ how it is. I know what I did. I like it better than you just pretending, anyway.”

When she looked up, Pearl was changed. Where once her body was naked and her face was masked, it was now her face that was bare while her body was dressed once more. Her expression was a contemplative one, mouth sewn together and one eyebrow tensed in thought. “Hmm,” was all she said. It reminded Jasper of what it felt like to be examined by Yellow Diamond. Yes, it was exactly like that.

A pearl with the power of a diamond. Imagine that.

“Is that remorse?” She asked.

“I _hurt_ you. I was supposed to hurt you. That’s what I was supposed to do to make you a good pearl again. I was supposed to fix you to save you.” Jasper thought about dark barracks. She thought about the sting of a whip against her shoulders, her chest, her face. Often her face. Her face was what she tried to protect the most during battle and so that was where her agate struck to break her down. She thought about confinement and shackles made of metal strong enough that even she could not bend or break them. Hours, days, maybe weeks. If she wasn’t a good soldier, if she didn’t _listen_ , if she didn’t _obey_ , she would go back there.

She was going back there, wasn’t she? Elimia was waiting for her.

“You were right,” Jasper said, “you were right about what they did to me to make me…to fix me. I’m sorry I turned around and did that to you. Wish I didn’t. I thought it was what I had to do.”

Pearl’s eyes were soft, wide, almost pained. Was there concern there, too? Jasper didn’t remember seeing that there before. This was new. “Don’t go back there, Jasper,” she said. “They’re just going to do it to you again.”

“They’ll take you away if I don’t.”

“Oh, Jasper,” Pearl sighed. She sounded so sad. Tired. And then she looked at Jasper like she was some pitiable thing. “Oh, Jasper.”

Jasper wasn’t sure she liked being regarded with pity. That was the last thing she wanted from Pearl. In fact, she considered the merit of asking Pearl to continue with whatever naked plans she’d had at the beginning of this call, knowing full well it might just make her angry. An angry Pearl was preferable to one that looked at Jasper with sympathy. Jasper didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her. She wasn’t a victim. She didn’t care what happened to her in the past—she wasn’t a victim.

Pearl broke the silence before Jasper could act on her bad judgement.

“Thank you,” she said. “It helps to hear you acknowledge what you did. It helps a lot. It helps to forgive you.”

“You don’t need to forgive me.”

She shook her head. “I _want_ to forgive you. I like you, Jasper. Don’t you see?”

Not really. For as long as she could remember, forgiveness was weakness while vengeance was strength. That’s just how it was for a soldier. Maybe, however, not all things Homeworld taught were true. A little kernel of doubt sat in Jasper’s mind. She hoped it stayed small. If it sprouted, Elimia was sure to weed it out as soon as she got her hands on her. If it stayed small, maybe she wouldn’t find it.

“I look forward to having you back here, Jasper,” Pearl said. There was playfulness in her tone, as if she hoped to lighten the mood. “Then I can show you in person why forgiveness is so nice.”

Jasper managed to crack a smile. “Yeah? Well, I look forward to it. Sorry I didn’t get the chance for you to show me all that ‘forgiveness’ now. Didn’t know it meant you couldn’t have clothes on, though.”

She laughed. “Well, it comes in many forms.”

“Sure it does.”

Pearl laughed harder, tossing her head back against the pillows of the bed. She drew her lower lip between her teeth and squinted at Jasper with that same thoughtful, measuring look. A small smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Close your eyes,” she said.

Jasper did. Funny how she didn’t question it.

“Now open your eyes.”

When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. It was a deep hue of blue, a welcoming slit with the organic magnificence of a flower, held apart with two slim fingers. Inside, Jasper could see the twinkle of wetness against the ocean’s depth.

Pearl’s voice sounded far away. “It is going to be a while until I see you again. I suppose you won’t be able to call me much once you get there, either. Right?”

“Uh,” was Jasper’s unintelligent reply.

“I thought as much. But maybe this will tide you over for now.”

Those two fingers came together, crossed like a promise sealed, and slipped into the entrance of her cunt. Jasper watched each knuckle sink in: first, second, third. And then as quick as they went in, they drew out once more, bringing lacquer with them. They kneaded over the folds to spread the wealth and turn every petal into a crystalline, sopping paradise. They scissored open to unfurl herself once more and dove in a second time.

Jasper just watched, struck by the warmth curling in her belly. It welled up even faster when she realized—somewhat detachedly—that those were Pearl’s fingers. That was Pearl’s cunt. She was doing this to _herself_ and just thinking about it had Jasper licking her lips. All at once, she wanted more. “Let me see your face,” she blurted.

The fingers paused and withdrew. Jasper’s belly of arousal turned to disappointment and she pulled her hand away from where it crept precariously on her thigh to grip the communicator with both hands. How could she fuck this up? How had she managed to fuck up the nicest damn thing she had ever seen so—

All at once, the camera shifted. It tilted and the audio rustled as Pearl adjusted the framing on her end. There was a thigh, and some blankets—Jasper’s blankets—and an extremely attractive view of Pearl’s breasts from below until everything finally settled.

Pearl smirked down at the communicator propped on the bed between her thighs. From this angle, she looked almost haughty, very pleased with herself. “Now I see why Peridot likes having this thing float around. It’s not easy to control.” She leaned back against the pillows and resumed her coy exploration of her body. “Better?”

“Much better.” Jasper’s throat was dry. Her eyes were intent on the screen, focused and unblinking lest she miss a moment of this.

Pearl was magnificent in her own right. She didn’t have much mass to her body and her breasts were small, but when she leaned back against the pillows and parted her thighs once more, it was probably the most beautiful thing Jasper had ever seen. She looked perfect there, so confident as she sat amid the backdrop of the Midnight City.

“Are you just going to let me do this alone?” she asked.

Oh. An invitation? “You want me to, uh, join you?”

Pearl palmed her mons. “Get undressed. It’s only fun if you give me something to look at, too.”

_Oh._

Tongue pressed between her teeth, Jasper shuffled back on her scant bed. Her boots caught gracelessly on the sheet and became quite tangled in the rubber treads before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to wear anything. Pearl’s orders. Jasper dissipated her uniform, boots and all.

“Doesn’t that feel better?” Pearl prompted. “Now sit up and let me see you, too. Go on.”

The idea that Pearl wished for a show of her own was exciting, yet nerve-wracking. What could Jasper do to impress her? How could she show off her assets to make this worth Pearl’s effort? Jasper recalled the time she spent with Pearl and tried to remember where her hands and eyes wandered when her gaze was hungry. What parts of her did Pearl like to consume?

Still clutching the communicator awkwardly in one hand, Jasper reared back, puffed out her chest, and curled her arm. The soft, heavy weight of her breasts gave way to the chiseled, purposeful shapes of her shoulder and bicep. Muscles that lay beneath her form sprang to life—where there was so little of Pearl, there was so much of Jasper. She was built to be a tank, after all. Ever since Jasper first erupted from the ground, she had been complimented on her physique. From the greedy look in Pearl’s eyes, she enjoyed it, too.

“Oh, my! You show-off,” she tittered. The hand that wasn’t entertaining her cunt cupped the side of her flushing face. Flirtation abounded.

A surge of pride inspired Jasper to double her efforts with another more purposeful flex and then a gratuitous caress of her palm over her breast. Rarely did she ever touch herself like this. Usually her claws made the sensation precariously unpleasant and she never fussed around with fondling anything other than her clit. This newfound freedom to touch and roam beneath Pearl’s ever-watchful eyes was surprisingly nice. “Like this? You like a good, strong quartz gem, don’t you?”

Pearl laughed again. “Oh, you have no idea,” she said.

For the first time, Jasper got the distinct sensation that she was out of her depth. Raw sexuality was something she never expected from Pearl—the same Pearl who squawked and fussed and preferred the company of her spear—and yet Jasper was reminded that Pearl was thousands of years her senior. Multiple millennia. Pearl produced geodes to create gems long before kindergartens were even invented. She served in the Nursery, became valuable enough to be gifted as a consort, and then rebelled against ownership all before Jasper even formed. And whilst Jasper had been standing in rigid formation with a whip against her cheek, Pearl had been waltzing into the arms of any gem she wished. When it came to experience in intimacy, there was no comparison. Pearl had done it all and Jasper could only watch in awe.

“Is that all you’re going to show me?” Pearl put on a demure pout. “I thought you’d want to show off a little more than that.”

With breath labored by arousal, Jasper fidgeted with the communicator. First, she tried to clench it between her legs, then her knees, only to realize her thighs obscured any respectable view of her cunt. Then she discovered that when she spread her knees out and wedged the communicator between her heels, it stayed put and afforded Pearl a very nice view.

Pearl responded with a satisfied hum. “There we are. My, aren’t you something to look at?”

“I can give you even more to look at,” Jasper said. Both hands roamed down beyond the planes of her stomach, fingers brushed through the fine hair on her mons. She spread herself open, flashing an entrance wreathed in all the colors of a desert sunset. Her clit ached already, begging for touch. It was probably spoiled; Jasper never had reason to give attention to anything but her clit when taking care of her urges, so now that she explored elsewhere, it was jealous, proclaiming neglect with a subtle throb.

“You be careful you don’t evert, now. If you do, there’s nothing I can do about the mess all the way over here.”

“I can control it.”

“Mm-hmm.” Pearl hardly sounded convinced, probably because she’d seen firsthand what it was like when Jasper lost that control. For now, she let it slide. She was more interested in other things. Offhand, she asked, “How many fingers can you fit inside you?”

Jasper considered. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I mean, I never tried. Cuz of—”

“Because of the claws, I see. Well, I want us to find out now,” Pearl said. “These are questions life simply wants us to answer.” As if to demonstrate, she pressed two fingers back into herself with a sigh.

Jasper followed suit. She rubbed her fingers through the channel of her slit, collecting slick as she went. It spread easily, happy to linger wherever the journey took it. The valley of her labia guided her fingers on the final plunge into her entrance. Two fingers. That was enough to really sink in and _feel_ it.

What surprised her was not necessarily how warm she was inside—Jasper could guess that her body ran hot. No, what surprised her was how smooth and delicate the walls were as they hugged her fingers from all sides. Wet and warm and silky. These things she would expect from Pearl, but not from herself. Jasper was a jasper. She half-expected the sensation to be hard or rough like sandpaper because she was not made to be fucked. Yet here she was, rubbing against the welcoming depths of her cunt as she worked her fingers into herself. It felt _good_ , just like she remembered when Pearl laid hands on her.

A soft giggle from her communicator broke Jasper’s concentration. She opened her eyes. “What?”

“Nothing,” Pearl said. She was smiling. “I’m just watching you.”

“Mmh.”

“I like seeing how desperate you are for touch, but I like seeing you fulfilled even more. How do those fingers feel?”

The whine peeled from the back of Jasper’s throat was answer enough. It pleased Pearl, at least.

“Good,” Pearl crooned. “What about another one? Do you think you can fit another one in?”

She very much thought she could. With a nod, Jasper twisted her fingers and let a third join with the others, feeling a stretch. It was a familiar sensation, a valiant struggle reminiscent of the time Pearl coaxed a gleaming crystal egg inside her.

The most worthwhile things in life required struggle. Someone told her that a long time ago.

Judging by the pang of pleasure that wracked her body the moment she curled all three fingers up inside her, they were right.

“ _Fuck…_ ”

“Don’t be too loud, now,” Pearl said. She teased, she flirted. “You don’t want anyone to hear you, do you?”

Jasper pressed her lips together to silence herself and felt that they were swollen and plump. Was that normal? She pressed them together even tighter and felt the pulse pounce with blood, tinting her skin an aroused red.

On her end of the galaxy, Pearl worked her fingers in tight little circles over her clit. In an almost systematic fashion, they dipped down to collect more sap before flicking back up again. Circle, circle, dip. Circle, circle, dip. Like almost everything Pearl did, it was a dance and it was mesmerizing. “I’m getting close just watching you like this,” she said. Her voice was low in her throat, dark and rich.

That admission had heat sinking into Jasper’s very bones. Her belly fluttered, her thighs fell open. Yes, she was growing close, too. This mutual, symbiotic thing they were doing was unexpectedly gratifying. They feasted on the sight of each other and sipped their delight whenever the other’s breath hitched or their fingers faltered. Together. Alone, but together.

Jasper’s legs shook as she curled her fingers into that soft, pleasurable spot inside her. A moan slipped out. Her lust felt heavy, tangible, like she could reach out and grasp it, reel it into her. And yet she waited, hinged on the way Pearl lay with her head thrown back against a pillow, eyelids weighted until her gaze was nothing more than a smoldering sliver.

“I wanna come with you,” Jasper slurred.

“You want to?” Pearl said.

“I want it.”

Satisfaction lit her face. “You’d better hurry,” she sighed.

Jasper gripped the communicator between her toes, intense, determined to keep it steady for this next part. “I’m there,” she breathed. Every syllable faltered. “I’m there—I’m there—I’m—”

She couldn’t even wait to see if Pearl was coming, too. She circled her clit furiously, curled her fingers one last time, and then buckled under her immediate orgasm. It swept Jasper up. Nothing to hold her back, no claws to mind or facades to maintain. It was just her and Pearl and a release unlike any she’d given herself before. When the breath rushed back to her lungs and her toes uncurled from the corners of the communicator, Jasper looked down to see Pearl rocking her hips dazedly against her own hand. Dull, sated arousal still throbbed in the base of Jasper’s belly as she watched her finish. Every little breathy sigh was savored and every flutter of her eyelashes was treasured until finally they both fell into a contented, lazy silence.

In that moment, it didn’t feel like they were solar systems apart. The intimacy spanned distances Jasper never fathomed.

“I think you’re going to miss this.”

“Hmm?” Jasper cracked open an eye.

Pearl leaned her flushed cheek upon her hand. “You’re going to miss doing this with me, I think. I doubt you’ll be allowed the freedom to entertain your pearl with calls when you get to your assignment.”

The warm bath of contentment in her core knotted up into dread so quickly. Jasper wished Pearl hadn’t brought it up. “Yeah, uh. I won’t be able to call you much. Maybe not at all. And I won’t be able to do _this_.”

Pearl nodded. Her gaze grew distant, as if she saw something beyond the fabric of their plane of existence. Or maybe she was just tired. “I surprise myself with how much I don’t want you to go.”

A wry twitch pulled at the corner of Jasper’s lip. “I’m surprised, too.”

“I think I’m most afraid of you coming back a different gem than you are now.”

Jasper frowned. “A different gem? I’ll always be a jasper.”

Did Pearl know of some transmutation powers that could change a gem from their original form? Was this some secret technology that the Diamonds held? How would Pearl know of such a thing?

The confusion must have read clear on Jasper’s face, for Pearl sighed and took pity on her. “No,” she said with all the patience in the world. “I mean like a different person. I think I like who you are now. I’m afraid of who you might be when you come back. A decade is a long time.”

“It’s not that long.”

“Sometimes it is.”

Pearl was right, wasn’t she? Sometimes a decade was a long time. Sometimes even a week was a long time. It depended on the circumstance, it depended on the suffering that took place in that time. “I _have_ to go,” Jasper concluded. “You know what it means to rebel. I don’t. I have to do this.”

“I know,” Pearl said. She crossed her arms over her breasts and pulled her knees together. “I know.”

It had gone sour again, hadn’t it? Jasper was at a loss of what to do to keep things from going bad whenever she and Pearl talked. It always ended with frustration or distaste and it wasn’t fair. For once, Jasper just wanted Pearl to come away from an interaction with her without looking like she was about to cry or yell. Maybe it was stupid on her part, but Jasper was determined to at least try. “You’re real pretty,” she blurted.

There was a second of pause and something that looked like downright bewilderment on Pearl’s face. Just a second. It could have been radio delay. But then she put her hand to her mouth and laughed. “Oh, _Jasper!_ Stop it!”

“Okay.”

“No, _don’t_ stop.” Pearl looked flustered. Her cheeks burned blue to match the soft hue of her nipples. She was too distracted to cover herself anymore. “You can keep going, I won’t stop you.”

“You’re pretty,” Jasper continued, eager to win Pearl’s favor. “And you’re organized—your efficiency is unparalleled. Graceful. And you’re strong, too, with your spear and your persistence. You survived. Survivor.”

Pearl chewed on her lower lip, a smile flush on her face. She considered the accolades Jasper awarded her and nodded at each one. Beautiful, methodical, graceful, strong, survivor. Her expression grew soft. “Survivor,” she murmured. “Well, that makes two of us.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. Because war was something you survived if you came out the other side in one physical piece. It didn’t matter what other parts got left behind. “Survivors.”

“Survive this, too. Then come back here. I’d like to be with you again, I think.”

Never before had returning from a mission ever sounded so tantalizing. “I will. I’ll do my best.”

“Good girl. Try your best.”

An inexplicable shudder coursed through Jasper at those words. She wasn’t sure how to classify the feeling that rumbled in her chest: not quite arousal, not quite pleasure, but it was not an entirely chaste sensation, either. Satisfaction? Maybe.

Strange.

“I’ll call if I can, too,” Jasper said. “But I probably won’t get to. So make sure Peridot hears from you.”

“Alright,” Pearl said.

“Alright.”

Jasper couldn’t bring herself to disconnect first, so she waited for Pearl end the conversation from her side. Even after the window display dissolved into nothing but static, Jasper made no attempt to move. She sat deep in thought, listening to the ship’s engine putter along as it took her to Elimia Agate.

Then and there, she decided she would do whatever it took to finish this mission. She would not just follow orders, she would _excel_ at them. Jasper would prove herself worthy at whatever cost and then, only then, she might be allowed to go back to Homeworld sooner rather than later. Jasper tried to imagine the expression on Pearl’s face when she returned in eight years instead of ten. She thought about the surprise in her eyes, the flush on her cheeks, and then the soft noises of delight she would make when Jasper presented her with a gift, _some_ gift (she wasn’t sure what it would be just yet, but she had time to figure that out). She thought about eagerly falling into bed and sating their mutual hunger for hands and mouths.

When she thought about that, Jasper knew it would all be worth it.

 

* * *

 

A week went by and Pearl heard nothing more from Jasper. She called Peridot, who confirmed that Jasper finally reached the new gem colony and was likely not in a position to communicate anymore. Peridot apparently had Level 7 Clearance—and never shut up about it—so she could track Jasper’s location from her system easily enough even though, according to Peridot, it had an ‘annoying’ 25-second delay.

Peridot also insisted that, “Under no circumstances will I transmit a lewd image of you to Jasper. Her communications are being heavily monitored.”

Pearl told her, frowning, that she didn’t wish to do that anyway.

Another week went by. Peridot said she’d heard nothing from Jasper, but no news was good news.

Days blended together. Was it a week or two weeks since she last called Peridot? Pearl wasn’t sure. Peridot didn’t fuss, so Pearl assumed it was fine.

Then another week went by. As was her typical routine, she sat by the window as she called Peridot. Sometimes it took a minute or two for her to pick up. That was normal. Presumably she was busy with other things and needed to finish up ship repairs, logging data, or whatever it was she did between Lapis’s legs. Peridot never put that sort of important business on hold for the likes of Pearl.

Five minutes of staring at a blank screen, however, was unusual.

Ten minutes was uncalled for. Perhaps she was in a meeting with Yellow Diamond.

Pearl put the communicator aside and decided to try tomorrow.

The next day, Pearl waited an hour. Then two hours. She sat on her cot and tried to read a book while the line sustained its long, empty tone, uninterrupted. It was troubling. Pearl was used to having at least some contact with the outside world, some foothold here on Homeworld to keep her safe. Whether it was Jasper’s presence, or the security of knowing Peridot was tasked with keeping an eye on her, Pearl was not truly isolated here in this apartment. But Peridot was not picking up on her end. Jasper wouldn’t be able to, either. And with those two missing, Pearl was suddenly devoid of contact with the outside world.

The first thing she did was panic. Just a little bit.

The second thing she did was tell herself not to panic.

She then proceeded to continue panicking. She paced through every room in the apartment, re-organized an entire shelf of baubles, and considered trying to get help from one of the other quartz gems in the building. No. No, that could end badly. There was a good chance that if she approached a quartz, lost and alone, she would end up abducted again. No, Pearl had to stay here. As much as she hated it, she had to wait for someone to come for her. Sooner or later, Peridot or Jasper would return. Even Lapis would be a friendly face given enough time in solitude.

After a couple of days, Pearl stopped trying to call Peridot. It was useless. She wasn’t answering.

Maybe a week passed. Maybe more. Pearl fluctuated between boredom and panic on a regular basis.

When there was a knock at the door, Pearl seized up. She sat on her cot, frozen, wondering if she was just hearing things.

It happened again.

Curious and wary, Pearl wandered toward the front door. It could have been anyone on the other side, and yet she had no way of knowing for certain who it was. The only gem it couldn’t be was Jasper, because Jasper did not need to knock on her own door. When it came to gems that Pearl wanted to let inside, Jasper was just about the only one who she wanted.

The knocking was more insistent now.

Well, but then there was Steven and Garnet and Amethyst. What if it was them out there? What if they had come to rescue her? Oh, the thought had Pearl reaching for the door—

But what if it was someone from Homeworld? Maybe Yellow Diamond sent gems after her. Maybe Yellow Diamond dispatched Jasper just so she could take Pearl away from her while she was gone.

Pearl hesitated. Her hand crept toward the button for the audio relay system instead. Maybe she could pretend to be Jasper and make that person outside leave. She wasn’t very good at voice mimicry, but she needed to try. The knocking escalated to pounding. Whoever this was would not go away any time soon unless she did _something_.

Jasper’s voice was deep, gravelly. She spoke from her chest and spoke directly. No fancy vocabulary, just straight and to the point. Maybe just growling out a solid, firm ‘go away’ would solve the problem.

Pearl spent the next fifteen seconds or so doing a myriad of vocal exercises to try and deepen her voice. It was difficult to concentrate with the ruckus at the door, however.

It was now or never.

She cleared her throat, prepped her voice, pressed the button for the audio relay and—

“— _open up, open up you clodding clod, I don’t have all day, I’m actually busy, so open the_ —”

There was no mistaking that voice. For once, Pearl felt a wash of relief at the sound of it. Without wasting another moment, she slammed her fist onto the button to open the door.

Peridot all but fell into the hallway. She took a few staggering steps to catch her balance, but fell forward onto her face anyway.

“Peridot!”

“ _Ugh._ ” She pushed herself onto her knees again, which took some time because she only used one arm. Her other clutched a box to her chest. “What took you so long? Are you hard of hearing?”

Pearl hurried to close the door again to seal them both into the privacy of the apartment. “I didn’t know it was you. I haven’t heard from you in weeks.”

“Of course not! I was being heavily monitored and I had to block your line.”

“Why?” Pearl asked.

Peridot’s disgruntled expression grew more serious. She looked down at the box clutched to her chest, then back up at Pearl. The box was a heavy metal alloy, sealed tightly with an electronic latch at the front. Pearl immediately felt uncomfortable looking at it, but she wasn’t sure why at first. The discomfort grew when Peridot offered it up to her. “It’s Jasper,” she said. “She, uh, ran into some problems.”

The tips of Pearl’s fingers went cold. She took the box from Peridot, a panicked lump forming in her throat. How many pieces would she find inside? Would they even have all the pieces? Oh, what if they only found a small part of her? Pearl dreaded opening the latch on the box. She opened it anyway.

Inside, a single, complete gem rested on a simple pedestal. Jasper was not in a dozen pieces. From the looks of it, there wasn’t even a scratch. Just to be sure, Pearl picked up her gem and turned it over in her hands. The familiar points and angles dug into her palm as she examined it for herself to ensure that Jasper’s physical form was unharmed. There was a smudge of dirt, but Pearl simply licked her finger and buffed it out with her thumb.

She forgot Peridot was even there until she piped up. “Ew.”

The breath Pearl held came out in a rush of relief. “What happened? Did she get attacked?”

“The report just says she got vaporized during combat. She fell, I guess. And the next thing I know, they ordered _me_ to come pick her up,” Peridot said. “I had to drop everything I was doing. The ship upgrades weren’t even installed yet, but I went out there anyway.” She closed the empty box and let her gaze linger over Jasper’s gem. There may have been pity in her eyes as she said, “The logs say Jasper’s not supposed to go back until she’s, uh, ready.”

Pearl made a soft noise of disapproval. “Oh, Jasper’s not going to like that.”

“No, she isn’t,” Peridot said. “I thought she was going to regenerate while I was on my way back and I was going to have to be the one to tell her. But now that she’s here, it’s your job. Good luck.” Peridot picked herself up from the floor and dusted herself off. Apparently her business was done, for it didn’t take very long for her to see herself out.

Pearl looked down at the gem cupped in her hands. “Oh, Jasper,” she sighed. Part of her felt relief now that she was no longer alone. Another part felt inexplicably saddened. Jasper would see this as a failure, a weakness. She was not going to be happy when she reformed.

“Oh, Jasper,” she said again. With Jasper’s gem held close, Pearl turned and went to find a comfortable place to put her.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: mild gore and body horror.

 

It was safe in here.

It was cowardly of her to think that.

But maybe she could stay for five more minutes, ten more minutes, a day…

When Jasper reformed, she would just have to face Elimia again. Elimia would look up at her with lips pressed together, a smile hidden in the shape of a frown. Her eyes would laugh but her mouth would not and she would point to Jasper and tell her not to let it happen again.

She could stay here a while longer and postpone that shame.

She should stop being a coward. It was shameful of her to even think like this. Hiding from a superior officer was a tactic for gems fresh out of the ground, unbecoming of a soldier of her rank and title.

Pain was temporary. Shame was forever.

With a burst of light energy, Jasper activated her physical gem. Light took its usual form—head, torso, hips. Arms, hands, legs, feet. There was no need to be creative. Jasper knew every detail of what she was expected to look like, down to the diamond emblazoned on her uniform.

The ground grew solid underneath Jasper as the light faded, and she stood with head bowed, eyes closed, and arms crossed in her diamond’s salute. Like that, she waited. Elimia or one of her underlings was sure to spot her soon.

A long moment passed. No one barked orders or grabbed her by the arm. The was no rhythmic drone of soldier gems marching in formation through the halls. There was, however, a distant melody. It sounded like someone humming. Familiar, serene, beautiful.

Jasper opened her eyes.

Light from the Midnight City flooded in. She almost staggered back when she realized she was no longer on some backwoods planet in the middle of nowhere. She stood in her own apartment beside a freshly-made bed. The pillows were lined up and the sheets were folded with crisp precision, save for the small indent in the middle of the bed were her gem had likely been sitting for a few days.

Pearl.

Jasper turned her attention to the humming down the hall, so soft and unobtrusive it may as well have been a siren’s song. She sought it out mindlessly, unthinking, knowing only that she needed to find the source.

Her search brought her to the main hall where Pearl danced betwixt the bold rays of light that spilled from the window. She hummed along to a song Jasper couldn’t hear and hit every beat of a rhythm Jasper couldn’t feel. A twirl, a leap, a dip.

A breath.

Pearl arched, her leg bending in an impossible way before throwing herself into another twist, momentum carrying her across the room. One foot, then the other. Again and again until Jasper lost track of how many times she’d changed ballast, until Jasper could not tell if she was even touching the ground at all anymore.

Even when she came down from her flight, she never rocked onto the balls of her feet. No, she remained on her toes, carrying herself through another set of precise exercises as though she weighed no more than a dust mote. Every step was calculated. Fluid, measured. Impeccable control. What a gem like Peridot would never have been able to do without falling on her face a dozen times, Pearl made look easy and effortless. And as strange as it was, Jasper could easily imagine Pearl’s spear in her hands as she danced, combining formidable power with casual grace.

Pearl’s slow, meticulous paces gave way to another flurry of spins across the hall. Her arms looped in an oval above her head in the silhouette of a ballerina’s discipline. She spun closer, closer.

Jasper didn’t realize she’d wandered directly into her path until it was too late.

“ _Oof!_ ” She grunted as Pearl slammed into her.

The impact was clumsy and startling for both. Pearl was taken completely by surprise. She shrieked and probably would have lost her balance if Jasper hadn’t grabbed her by the waist on instinct. Instead, she braced both hands on Jasper’s chest and, after a moment of panic, tittered in relief. “Oh! Jasper, it’s you. You’re back!”

“Yeah, I am.” Odd how Pearl looked happy to see her. She leaned into Jasper’s arms and smiled up at her with a familiarity that made something warm bloom inside her chest. Warm and slightly ticklish. She tried not to notice how Pearl’s hands pressed against the curves of her breasts. “I’m not sure why though. I didn’t expect to come back here.”

“Oh...” Pearl put a finger to her chin in a poor attempt to hide her grimace. “Yes, that. Peridot brought you back a few days ago. But I’m not sure exactly what happened.”

Great. Fuck. Something terrible _had_ happened, but Jasper didn’t want to think about it. Not now, not when Pearl seemed utterly content to lean into her chest and just be here with her. Maybe she’d grown lonely while Jasper was away. If so, Pearl wasn’t the only one. But the events that led up to her being returned to Homeworld were not nearly as interesting as what was happening now. Jasper was quick to change the subject. “You’re really good at dancing.”

“You were watching me. I _knew_ it.”

Jasper shrugged. “It’s hard to look away. I haven’t seen anything like it.”

This time when Pearl laughed, she pulled away. How easily she slipped from Jasper’s arms. “Oh, come on. I’m sure you can dance, too.”

“Not like that, I can’t. Not even a little bit.”

Another laugh and a wave of Pearl’s hand. “You’ve fused before, haven’t you? I’m sure you have. You can dance just fine.”

“Only with other jaspers,” she said. “Not like what you do on Earth. It’s different.”

“Mmhmm.” Pearl stepped away and bounced back up onto the tips of her toes. She began to dance again with regal and deliberate steps.

“I know you did it a lot on Earth. I remember you and that amethyst were fused together when I first saw you. You fought alongside a garnet fusion. I hadn’t seen that many mismatched fusions since The War. I almost forgot how…” Jasper trailed off there. She hoped the twitch of her lips didn’t give away too much.

Fusion was for war. It was a tactic to make forces bigger and stronger. On occasion, an agate would see an opportunity arise and would select a handful of her best quartz soldiers to fuse. Three or four jaspers. A pair of citrines. A gaggle of amethysts. Fusion was a matter of business and it helped them win wars, but there were strict rules for how it should be done. The Crystal Gems had always broken those rules with delight and Jasper could just never understand why.

“I don’t expect you to appreciate fusion,” Pearl said, mid-arabesque.

“But I have fused before.”

“Mmhmm.”

 “I _have_.”

“I believe you.”

Pearl danced her way down the main hall with flittering arms while Jasper intuitively chased after her with bold strides.

“Good,” Jasper said. “Cuz I have.”

“But only with other jaspers.”

“Right. But it’s basically the same thing.”

“You just said it was _different_.”

“It’s different, but it’s basically the same.”

It became a game. No matter where Jasper went, Pearl kept just out of reach with a sly, knowing smile on her lips. When Jasper moved closer, Pearl feinted back. When Jasper made a move to give her space, Pearl sauntered into her periphery. It would have been a game of cat and mouse, only such games didn’t usually involve the mouse seemingly _wanting_ to get caught.

“If it’s so similar, why doesn’t Homeworld let you fuse with other gems?” Pearl countered.

“I don’t know. It’s not my place to question the Diamonds’ laws,” Jasper said. She reached for Pearl’s gracefully lilting hand, but she was still too far away and Pearl was too quick. She caught only air.

Pearl circled around in front of Jasper. “But if there were no laws, would you try? Would you try with a different gem?”

“No. I don’t need to fuse. I’m strong enough alone.”

“Well, that’s not what fusion is about.”

“Yes it is.” Jasper made another move to catch her. The game was beginning to frustrate. Somehow she felt like she was losing.

“Oh, Jasper. You really have no idea, do you?”

“Yes I _do!_ ” She grabbed again.

Pearl just laughed. She kept just out of reach. The game was still fun for her; her playful twirls and carefree comments were as cavalier as ever. And yet Jasper’s fun turned to exasperation. Perhaps it was the instinct bred into her pedigree that ignited a part of her brain. Somewhere along the line, the game became a chase and the chase became a hunt.

 _Stalk, hunt, ambush, capture_ —

On her next set of spins, Pearl strayed just close enough. Without even thinking, Jasper seized the opportunity with a lunge far more aggressive than any of her previous attempts. It was but a split second of forgetfulness driven by breeding and years of training. This time, when Jasper reached out, she caught Pearl by the wrist. Victory surged when she latched onto something and—

“ _Ow!_ ” Pearl recoiled with a shriek.

The yelp startled Jasper enough to let go. Pearl pulled her arm away and staggered back a few steps, clutching it to her chest. Her expression was heartbreaking: confused, indignant, betrayed. When she uncurled her arm, there were dark, raking scrapes gouged into the flesh.

Jasper looked down at her claws.

_Oh._

“I forgot,” Jasper murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“I thought I told you to get rid of those things before you go touching me,” Pearl huffed. She looked frazzled, but more annoyed than angry. “Jasper, please.”

“You’re right. I forgot.” Unconsciously, she tucked her claws inwards toward her palms. She watched Pearl rub at her arm and felt a pang of guilt. “You okay?”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.”

“I’m sorry.”

Pearl looked up at Jasper. Her gaze was softer, more tempered. “I know, I know. I just think sometimes you forget your own strength. You play too rough.”

She did play too rough. But the worst part was that towards the end, Jasper wasn’t sure she was playing anymore; something different, more sinister took over. She wasn’t sure she wanted to think about it anymore.

Some things could be cleaved away. Other things were more difficult to excise.

 

* * *

 

The sky curdled a bruised purple as the midnight sun waned in the sky. Pearl retired to her own cot and Jasper lay on her bed. Quiescence did not come easily. With her communicator propped onto her chest, she tried to assuage the racing thoughts that plagued her mind.

_Peridot are you up?_

For the first time, she found herself hoping that Peridot was, indeed, awake. Then again, Peridot did not like to rest. It was not surprising when, only moments later, Jasper received a message in return.

_Hi, you’re back._

Typical. Peridot was inseparable from her communicator, literally and figuratively.

Jasper pressed her tongue between her teeth and maneuvered her fingers over the screen to tediously type back a reply, but before she could even get a full word typed out, Peridot sent a flurry of messages her way.

_They made me come pick you up._

_It was annoying._

_I don’t want to do that again._

_Also, this is the first time you’ve been vaporized since Era 1._

_What happened?_

Finally, a pause. Jasper frowned and pecked out a reply, one claw at a time.

_I don’t want to talk about it._

_I am going to read the report and find out anyway. I have level 7 clearance,_ Peridot said.

_Fuck your level 7 clearance._

_Or you could fuck me?_

_No._

_Oh, I forgot. You have your favorite pearl for that now._

Jasper audibly sighed. This again. It was a weird mix of jealousy and possessiveness considering Peridot had Lapis to keep her company. Jasper decided the best thing to do was just ignore it.

 _I need to have Pearl come pick something up from your place actually_ , Jasper wrote.

_Sure, what?_

_I don’t know, just something._

_You don’t know what you want her to pick up? Now you are confusing me._

_Peridot, just do this one thing to help me out. I just need Pearl out of the apartment for a little while._

There was a long pause, then. Jasper could practically sense the gears turning in Peridot’s head. When she did reply, it was only one word.

_Why?_

Jasper stared at that one-word message. Frowned.

_Just do this. I need her to pick something up._

_Like the capacitor she got last time?_

_Yes._

Another pause. Peridot didn’t usually take this long to reply. Finally:

_Okay. I have some old tools she can pick up tomorrow._

_Be careful, Jasper._

Sometimes Peridot was too smart for her own good.

 

* * *

 

It did not take long for the marks on Pearl’s forearm to heal up. That was the advantage of being an inorganic life form: wounds resolved much quicker than in organics.

Playing with almost any quartz gem was bound to end in a couple bruises or scrapes. Pearl had eons of experience with Amethyst, who had been terribly grabby in her younger years and never quite grew out of it. Even Rose was known to forget her strength when she became overenthusiastic. So it was no surprise that Jasper left marks when they played. It was the nature of things.

Once, Pearl saw a human child and his family dog playing fetch in a park near Beach City. The Rottweiler enjoyed the game and was happy to chase after the ball any time the child threw it. On one occasion, however, the dog bowled over the child in its excitement and knocked him into a nearby park bench. There was some blood, a lot of crying, and a completely oblivious dog who was simply baffled as to why the human child longer wanted to play with it.

It was like that a lot with quartz gems. They were not always malicious, but they were bigger, stronger, and, unlike the Rottweiler, bred to be dangerous. 

Jasper apologized and that was enough for Pearl to forgive her.

The beginning of the next day cycle was a quiet one. Pearl shooed Jasper out of her bedroom so that she could make the bed (Jasper always left her sheets and pillows in a rumple) and dust around the corners of the apartment. She had all manner of cleaning implements from Earth still stowed away in her gem. Keeping a mop or a duster close at hand was always a necessity when acting as a housekeeper—mother?—to Steven, a job she found she honestly enjoyed. It was satisfying to perform acts of care and dedication for someone she loved. Whether it was washing dishes or folding laundry, Pearl genuinely enjoyed the work. For _him_ , it was even more special.

How odd that she found she enjoyed keeping Jasper’s apartment tidy as well.

Pearl was sweeping her last bundle of dust bunnies out onto the balcony when Jasper emerged from her office. “Hey,” she said, “How would you like to go pick something up for me?”

“Depends,” was Pearl’s reply. She tossed a smirk over her shoulder. “What are you going to do for me?”

The brief look of shock on Jasper’s face was worth it. It quickly dissolved into a boisterous guffaw. “ _Ha!_ Well, what do you want, Pearl?”

She went back to her sweeping, a number of cheeky demands on the tip of her tongue. Maybe she wanted a solar system all for herself. Maybe she wished for a long trip away from Homeworld for a while. Maybe she wished for freedom. Instead, she let her hips flirt as her broom kicked up more dust. “I don’t know. You might just have to owe me for later.”

Jasper loved it. She came closer. “You’re dangerous, you know that? A dangerous pearl.”

“I know. But isn’t it more fun that way? A boring, idle pearl wouldn’t suit you very well.”

“I’d get fewer headaches.”

It was Pearl’s turn to laugh as she closed the balcony doors and put her broom back in her gem where it belonged. “Fair enough. Fine, fine. What is this thing I need to fetch for you?”

Jasper paused and looked down at the communicator in her hand. She read off the screen. “Some…old tools.”

“That shouldn’t be too difficult. And when I get back,” Pearl said and pointed to the collar latched around her throat, “we can take this off, right?”

“Right. When you get back.”

Pleased with the negotiation, Pearl tugged the hem of her skirt down over her thighs and straightened her stockings. “Perfect. And don’t you dare go on another long mission and leave me in this thing again. I _will_ hunt you down next time to get it off. It’s itchy and humiliating.”

“We’ll get it off, Pearl.”

With a skeptical hum, Pearl went to collect her communicator.

Jasper followed. “But you’re fine with going by yourself, right? Last time you were crying.”

“I’ll be fine this time. I know what to expect now. It just caught me off-guard last time is all,” Pearl lied.

“You’re sure, though? I can have Peridot come pick you up.”

“Please, no. I will be perfectly content without her chauffeuring me around.”

Being pawed and ogled at by strange gems on the shuttle was uncomfortable at best, but it was not what had made Pearl cry the last time. Only bitter swigs of nostalgia could do that now. Homesickness, the disease of a heavy heart. The prospect of being able to send another message back to Earth, however, was enough for Pearl to brave it all again. Garnet, Amethyst, Steven…she wanted them to know she was alive and okay. If an agate grabbed a palmful of her ass on her way there, then so be it.

Much to Pearl’s relief, Jasper eventually relented with her concerns and stopped offering to have Peridot pick her up. Her victory was short-lived, however, because Jasper immediately insisted she walk Pearl to the shuttle station like a mother walking her child to the bus stop before school. Pearl put her foot down, protested, and eventually got her way. Jasper only walked her to the door instead.

“And if anything happens, call me. I will come,” Jasper said.

“I will be fine.”

“Good. But if you’re not—”

“I will be _fine_.”

With her nose in the air, Pearl struck out on her own, leaving Jasper standing there in the doorway of the apartment, watching her go. It looked so very much like their parting weeks earlier as Jasper left for her mission, but the roles were reversed now. Pearl took immense satisfaction in that. She liked showing Jasper what it felt like to stand in her place.

The walk to the shuttle station was uneventful. Gems stared and some whispered, yes, but Pearl continued to walk with bold strides and her head held high. Perhaps that made them stare and whisper even more.

_Let them ogle. None of them know about the jasper I have trained back home._

She was already at the shuttle station, waiting in a queue between a citrine and a morganite when she saw the message pop up on her communicator.

It was from Peridot.

 _Go back_ , it said.

Pearl frowned. She had to tuck her elbows in to avoid bumping into the morganite behind her when she wrote: _Why?_

The reply was instantaneous. _Go back. What is she doing?_

_Who? Jasper?_

_Yes. She’s doing something right now. You have to go back. I want to know what it is._

Pearl wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, or if there was truly a sense of urgency in Peridot’s messages. Then again, this was Peridot. Did she trust her?

A gust of humid air preceded the shuttle as it rolled into the station. It was time. Either she took the shuttle, or she turned back now. Pearl looked down at the communicator in her hands. Peridot sent another message. This time it was just a single, beseeching question mark.

The queue shifted as the shuttle doors opened. The gem at her back shuffled forward in impatience.

Now or never.

Pearl made up her mind. She peeled away from the queue and hurried back toward the promenade.

“Where are you going, sweetheart?” the morganite called after her.

Pearl resisted the temptation to fire a rude remark in return and just kept walking. It was difficult to type on her communicator as she dodged through the crowd.

_I’m going back._

She walked, then jogged, then walked again. It was the struggle of wanting to hurry but not wanting to attract too much attention, and she ended up settling on a lilting gait. Her heels never had the chance to touch the ground as her fleeting steps quickened.

Why was Peridot so insistent? What did she know?

Why was there a knot of dread tangling up in her stomach?

Pearl slipped in front of two quartz gems waiting for the elevator. Didn’t even apologize. She got a priceless look at their shocked expressions as she mashed the button to Jasper’s floor and the doors closed in their faces.

The best part was knowing that no one would believe them if they said a pearl was bold enough to cut in front of them at the elevator.

When she reached the apartment, Pearl’s immediate instinct was to stay hushed. The distinct sensation of intrusion prickled at the back of her neck as she opened the door and stepped inside.

Everything was still. Everything was quiet.

Perhaps Peridot lied to her, or maybe she was worked up over nothing.

Then came a dull, snapping thud like the sound of lumber being split in two, followed by a hiss. It came from the storage room. The dread living in Pearl’s stomach took root and germinated with sinister urgency and she knew in that moment that Peridot was right: Jasper was hiding something from her.

Maybe Pearl already knew what Jasper was hiding.

That sick feeling in her gut only swelled when she turned into the doorway of the storage room and saw Jasper there, hunched with her back to the door. Pearl heard her labored breaths. The scent of iron mist hung in the air. And yet, for the life of her, she could not bring herself to step forward or call out. Was it fear? Morbid curiosity? Maybe she just wanted to wait for the right moment to—

Jasper’s form shuddered and she drew a ragged breath. It rattled around in her chest before an almost imperceptible sob escaped. Just one. Yet it was the most weakness Pearl had ever heard Jasper vocalize.

Something was very wrong.

Then Jasper rocked forward again, reaching. There was blood, Pearl could see blood. Jasper reached for a viscera-drenched hatchet to her right, and that was when she could not stand there in silence any longer. The horror of it numbed, giving way to what felt very much like anger and indignity.

How _could_ she do this? How _dare_ she?

“Jasper!” Pearl cried.

The hair on the nape of Jasper’s neck stood on end as she jolted. Then her whole body lurched, shoulders buckling and spine snapping to attention. The speed upon which she whirled around was primal, yes, but it was nothing compared to the force of the tiger’s scream that erupted. It pierced the air, defensive and cutting like the row of fangs bared in Pearl’s direction, provoked.

This time, however, oh, this time there was no wrath, no beast that could push Pearl back. She stared back into Jasper’s snarling face and took a resolute step forward.

She could see tears in Jasper’s eyes.

There was blood on her hands.

Where were her fingers?

Jasper jerked forward, another lunge in an attempt to ward Pearl away, wild pinprick pupils wreathed in golden panic.

“ _No!_ ” Pearl shouted back. “ _Don’t you give me that. Sit down_.”

Another snap of bared teeth, another toss of her head.

“Jasper, you listen to me right now. It won’t work this time. I’m not going away.” And there Pearl stood, arms crossed over her chest as Jasper paced frantically, trapped in her red-handed lie. Each heavy breath grew longer and more controlled than the last as she began to wind down, and yet she kept her head swiveled in Pearl’s direction, refusing to release eye contact. That was fine. Pearl met that challenge with her own steeled gaze, unwavering. When she felt Jasper was calm enough, she made her position readily clear. “I am very disappointed in you, Jasper. I am angry and disappointed.”

Jasper’s upper lip twitched, flashing rows of teeth again.

“What were you doing?”

She said nothing.

Pearl took another step forward. “Show me what you did.”

Pearl stood over the mess of blood and discarded hatchet in the middle of the floor. Jasper pushed against the wall, relenting to Pearl’s dominance with each move. For all her upset and carrying on, Jasper never challenged that dynamic. And now, with the wall at her back, she finally looked away from Pearl, submitting with her eyes.

“Show me.”

Still avoiding her gaze, Jasper extended her hands.

Mutilated. That was the only word Pearl could think to describe how they looked. Almost every finger ended at the third knuckle in an open, frayed gash. The rest of the finger simply looked as though it was missing. Well, ‘missing’ was not quite the right word. All she had to do was look down at the pool of blood at her feet to see the remnants of those fingers. Claws uprooted by the bone lay discarded, maybe seven or eight of them. Lo and behold, two claws remained on Jasper’s right hand. It seemed Pearl returned just in time to catch her in the act. If she waited much longer, Jasper might have gotten away with it. Again.

“This is not the first time you’ve done this,” Pearl said. It wasn’t a question.

Jasper still wouldn’t look at her.

“ _Jasper!_ Answer me.”

The reply came out garbled and mumbled, words chopped up between trembling breaths.

“Jasper.”

This time, Jasper managed words. “ _I just wanted to touch you_.”

It wasn’t fair. All the anger and fire Pearl wanted to spew felt too hot now, too scalding. Instead, uninvited pity flooded in, washing, tempering her emotions. Pearl still scoffed and she still shook her head, but the bite in her voice was soft when she said, “You didn’t have to do _this_. We could have found another way to make it work, we could have—”

Could have, would have. None of it mattered now. The reality was that Jasper turned to _this_ for a chance to hold her. To touch, to be touched, Jasper felt she needed to shred herself to ribbons to earn it. Pity welled in Pearl’s chest once more and this time when she stepped forward, she did so with open palms. “I had no idea you were doing this. I thought you had shapeshifted somehow. I thought it was that simple. I wouldn’t have let you do this.”

“Can’t hold a shapeshift that long,” Jasper said. That was her only defense. She had nothing else to offer.

Pearl let her hands inch toward Jasper’s downturned face. She could see the tracks of dried tears cutting through her stripes. “That must have hurt a lot,” she said.

Jasper didn’t answer.

She felt Jasper’s hot breath on her palms as Pearl finally cupped her cheeks in both hands. Her pulse was fast, but her eyes were closed and she relinquished herself.

“Oh, Jasper,” Pearl whispered. “What am I going to do with you?”

There was no answer to that question. A moment of quiet surrender encompassed them both like an embrace.

“Can I at least finish?”

Pearl balked, ready to protest, to argue, but then she met Jasper’s eyes and got caught in the depths. Pain and sorrow, shame and imploring. She glanced down at those mangled hands with those two claws that remained. As much as she hated to admit it—and oh, how she hated herself for even thinking of it—the idea of Jasper’s hands being uneven and unfinished somehow made the whole thing seem much worse. Was it cruel to think that? Was it selfish? She sighed, pressed her lips together, and then said, “Alright. But after this, no more. This is the last time.”

“The last time,” Jasper agreed.

They knelt together on the floor. Pearl watched Jasper steady her arm as she raised the hatchet and closed her eyes as it came down with a sickening sound. She watched as bone was wrenched from flesh, watched the way Jasper bit into her lower lip to keep from crying out. There was nothing surgical or precise about the procedure. It was brutality. It was all about how quickly Jasper could pull those claws out of her body. At one point, Pearl watched as Jasper used her teeth, like an animal gnawing on its own leg to free itself from a trap. Untold desperation.

Pearl felt bad for yelling before. She shouldn’t have yelled.

Even after it was over, they stayed there. Jasper sat with her injured fingers curled in her lap while Pearl absently rubbed a hand up and down her spine. It was supposed to be soothing.

“Why did you come back so early?” Jasper asked.

Pearl debated lying, but she knew that it would make her almost as bad as Jasper if she did. “Peridot. Peridot told me to come back. She knew you were hiding something.”

A snarl simmered on Jasper’s lips again. “I should have known. I should—”

“Don’t you dare do a single thing to her,” Pearl said. “She did this because she cares about you, you know.”

Jasper slumped, looked disgruntled. The fight left her eyes. “You’re the last person I would expect to stick up for her.”

It certainly was unexpected; Pearl wouldn’t argue with that. “Well, she did the right thing,” she said. “And when someone does the right thing, you can’t get mad at them for it. Even if it is Peridot.”

They argued that point for some time, but eventually Pearl won out and Jasper agreed to be civil. By then, the bleeding had stopped. The mood was quiet. Jasper begrudgingly agreed to call Peridot while Pearl cleaned up the mess in the storage room. Peridot deserved to know.

For once, their conversation was hushed. No curses or outbursts emanated from the next room while Pearl mopped. She expected at least some screeching from Peridot’s end, some huffy storm from Jasper’s end, but there was nothing except the occasional murmur. They talked for almost an hour, long after the mop water turned from clear to pink to red.

Perhaps Peridot and Jasper cared for one another more than they let on.

When Jasper finally emerged from her office, she looked exhausted, drained. She held her hands at her sides like they were weighing her down somehow. Two steps into the hall, she stopped, looking undecided. Without putting up much of a fight, she retreated to her bedroom. Pearl heard the creak of a bed and the rustle of covers.

Sometimes Amethyst used to do this. Sometimes Steven, too. They crawled into bed in search of comfort and an escape. When the world overwhelmed them, they always seemed to think pulling a sheet over their head would help them escape it all. Or something. Pearl wasn’t quite sure how it helped, but she did know how she could help.

For a minute or two, Pearl stood in the doorway, a finger to her lips as she eyed the rumpled, Jasper-shaped mountain of blankets on the bed. She debated about whether she ought to go through with this. It felt like plucking petals from a daisy as she waxed and then waned and then lost track of what she was arguing with herself over before she started all over again.

What if Jasper misread her intentions?

What if Pearl somehow led her to think—

No, Pearl shouldn’t care if she led Jasper on. It was for her own safety. If Jasper believed Pearl wanted her, she would keep her safe.

That was a lie and Pearl knew it. Jasper would keep her safe regardless because Jasper already felt for her.

It was cruel to make Jasper think Pearl felt for her in return.

But didn’t she? Didn’t Pearl feel _something?_

No, it was _wrong_ of her to feel something. After everything Jasper did, it was wrong.

Yet Rose had done many of the same things. Did that mean the love Pearl had for her was wrong?

Rose was different.

Not that different.

The blankets were already warm like desert sand as Pearl crawled onto the bed. She found that Jasper-shaped mound beneath them all and rested her hand on something that felt like a hip as she nudged herself close. She found a plume of white hair and followed it up to Jasper’s head, brushed it away from her face. Jasper looked up at her with a mix of surprise and caution.

“I’m still disappointed in you, you know,” Pearl reminded. And then she leaned over and found Jasper’s cheek with her lips. She kissed her there just once, right beneath the ruddy stripe. “But I’m not angry anymore. Promise you won’t hide anything else from me?”

The kiss caught Jasper off-guard. She looked red in the face. “Promise,” she said. “And I don’t make promises lightly.”

“Good.” Pearl tucked herself up against the broad plane of Jasper’s back and soaked up the warmth that radiated there. It was comfortable.

It wasn’t long before Jasper was snoring and Pearl’s breathing evened. There was quite a large expanse of bed, and yet they both ended up clinging to the middle of it, refusing to let space between them even in their quiescent state. They joined in many places: Pearl’s chest against Jasper’s back, Jasper’s calves tucked beside Pearl’s feet, Pearl’s face against the nape of Jasper’s neck. Occasionally, a hand ventured out beneath the blankets in search of flesh and found a warm place to live. And in the moments that Pearl awoke, she found herself in that cozy state of sloth that was so difficult to pry away from that she simply closed her eyes, listened to Jasper’s snuffling breaths, and drifted back into quiescence.

There were few things more intimate than sex. Fusion was one of them. This languid, restful embrace, Pearl decided, was another.

Some hours later, Pearl awoke to silence. No snoring, just a heavy arm slung over Pearl’s waist and heat radiating from the body pressed against hers. When she looked up, she saw Jasper staring back at her, half her face obscured by a pillow and rumpled hair. Her eyes were soft, like molten honey, and half-lidded. Every blink was lazy, slow. Pearl’s chest swelled as she took it in. Oh, it just wasn’t fair.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Pearl whispered.

“Like what?”

“Like you love me.”

Jasper did not flinch, did not pull a face. She only drew her tongue across her lips and considered Pearl’s words for a moment. “Why can’t I love you?”

Oh, no. Pearl had to bite back the urge to tell Jasper she had no idea what love was or what it entailed. All the sacrifice, the compromise, the bliss. And yet, who was she to say what Jasper felt? Maybe she really did feel love or something close to it. Pearl only shook her head. “I won’t be able to love you back.”

“That’s okay,” Jasper said.

“It’s going to hurt.”

“A lot of things hurt.”

“You are stubborn.”

“So are you.”

They agreed on that, at least. Jasper tried—and failed—to be innocuous about pulling Pearl a little closer to her. In retaliation, Pearl reached out and found Jasper’s belly. It was warm with plush rolls that moved against her palm as she stroked, yet firm underneath. As Pearl kneaded her fingers into the dimples at her waist, Jasper shifted to relinquish even more of her stomach. A rumbling purr revved up from her side of the bed. That was new.

“Be careful or you’ll fall asleep again,” Pearl said. “And then I’ll have to tickle you to wake you up.”

Jasper made a throaty noise of protest before she went right back to purring.

“I’m telling you, you won’t like being tickled. Steven likes it, but I don’t think you will.”

One eye opened. Jasper stopped purring. “Steven? One of those humans?”

“Oh…” Pearl could have kicked herself for slipping up. She shouldn’t be mentioning Steven to anyone, even Jasper. “Yes. He is a human child I was taking care of.”

“Why? Why would you take care of a human child?”

If only Pearl could count the reasons, but there were far too many to keep track of. An exasperated sigh puffed from her lips as she leaned back on a pillow and stared at the ceiling as if she would find all the answers there. Yet the only answers she could find were written on her heart. “Because I love him. I love him like my own. I only ever came back with you to protect him, you know.” She twisted her fingers together. “I try not to talk about him because I don’t want Homeworld to know about him. I need to keep him safe. Do you understand?” Expectant, she glanced over at Jasper, only to see her looking back with intensity. For a moment, Pearl worried that Jasper had figured it out, that she knew the truth behind who Steven really was. Somehow, somehow…

Jasper only murmured, “I won’t tell them about him.” She said nothing else and asked no other questions.

She couldn’t suspect Steven had anything to do with Rose. Of course not, Pearl assured herself. Jasper was already looking disinterested in the subject and nudging back against Pearl’s hand in an effort to resume the attention she had enjoyed so much.

Pearl was happy to massage Jasper’s belly again if it meant leaving the topic of Steven behind. This time, however, there was no purring.

“The reason I was vaporized on that mission was because I fell,” Jasper said.

The statement was unprompted, but from the stiff tone of voice, Pearl suspected she’d been wanting to say it for a long time. She kept rubbing. “You fell?”

Jasper’s gaze lay static on the ceiling. “Yeah. They sent me out to fight the day after I got to the planet. I forgot I didn’t have my claws. I jumped from a ship onto the back of this metal creature and I thought I could catch myself. Usually I can just dig in and hold on, but there was nothing. I forgot I didn’t have them anymore. So I just slipped off and I fell the rest of the way down. And that was it.”

Pearl hummed a somber note.

“I didn’t think Elimia would send me all the way back here. I expected she would make me try again.” Jasper sighed. “This is almost worse.”

“What are you going to do now that you took you claws off again, hmm?” Pearl asked. She reached for Jasper’s hand and pulled it out from beneath the covers to examine it, careful not to prod too close to the healing stumps at the ends.

“I’ll just have to work harder,” Jasper said.

 


	17. Chapter 17

The next day was amiable. Pearl kept Jasper company as she sorted through some of her storage room collection, as if looking for something. They chatted, talked about the unusually blue cast to the sky that day, and then proceeded to gossip about the amethyst who lived in the apartment above them. Apparently she was infamous for misplacing destabilizers to the point where her commanding agate had to order an entirely new batch for their platoon. Jasper had a good laugh when Pearl suggested she had a fetish.

It felt so comfortable like that: Pearl lounging on her cot, head propped up in her hand as Jasper sat on the floor and went through the contents of her large trunks. So comfortable, in fact, that it was disappointing when Jasper found what she was looking for and hauled it—a large, sack-looking bundle of thick fabric and sandbags—out of the storage room. It dragged behind her on the ground like the carcass of a fresh kill.

Pearl lingered behind to address the trinkets and treasures Jasper left strewn on the floor during her search. She began to put them back where they belonged in their respective trunks.

It wasn’t long before a number of dull thuds echoed down the hall in succession. One, two. One, two, three.

At first, Pearl thought little of it. Jasper was doing Jasper things and Pearl didn’t mind that. The scent of age and musk that wafted down the hall, however, made Pearl curious. She left her organizational endeavors to investigate.

Hanging in the middle of the hall was the ancient-looking sack Jasper dragged from the storage room. It was almost unrecognizable as a punching bag, as the canvas fabric was marred with extensive slashes that Pearl presumed were inflicted by Jasper’s claws long ago. Long, _long_ , ago. Every time Jasper’s fist met the bag, a cloud of dust wheezed from between the fibers. More musk assaulted Pearl’s nose.

“What are you up to?” she said.

Jasper gave the punching bag another set of jabs. “Training.”

“Training? With that old thing?”

“I have to get better before I go back to Elimia. I’m not going to let her see me fail again.” Another jab, this one strong enough to send a shredded piece of the punching bag flying across the room. The muscles in Jasper’s shoulders rippled and caught Pearl’s keen gaze. Bless.

Pearl couldn’t help herself. The prospect of getting a live demonstration of Jasper’s strength was too tempting. She stepped closer and tried to sound innocent. “That old punching bag isn’t going to survive you much longer, you know. You should train with me, instead.”

Jasper twisted around and met her with an unimpressed stare. “We’ve talked about this. I’m not training with you. I could seriously hurt you.”

“May I at least watch?” she asked.

Evidently, that was acceptable. Jasper turned back to the punching bag and got back to work. “Yeah, sure.”

From the sidelines, Pearl watched Jasper in her element. She traced the contours of her body, noting the neat tuck of her waist and the impressive mass of her hips and thighs. She wondered what it would feel like to be at the foot-end of one of Jasper’s kicks. Sure, her arms had power enough to knock over a full-grown sequoia without much fuss, but her _thighs_. One good kick perhaps had the power to take down a capital ship mid-flight.

The thought had Pearl licking her lips.

For a brief moment, she wondered what it would be like to fuse with something like that, but then she scolded herself for being too gratuitous. Jasper made it clear that she was not interested in fusion. She should just enjoy Jasper as she was with her mane of magnificent hair whipping over her shoulders and her fists clenched in resolve.

As Pearl predicted, the punching bag did not last very long. After only ten minutes or so, nothing was left but sad tatters of fabric hanging limply over a large mound of sand on the floor.

Jasper apologized as Pearl pulled a dustpan and broom from her gem and proceeded to clean up the mess. Not that she minded. It meant she could watch Jasper run through a set of one-handed pushups out of the corner of her eyes as she swept.

By the time she’d finished cleaning up the mutilated punching bag, Jasper switched to doing pushups with the other arm. Pearl caught the glisten of sweat at the nape of Jasper’s neck and had to excuse herself.

In the isolation of the storage room, Pearl pressed a hand between her legs, bit down on her lower lip, and told herself to stop being so silly. Jasper was trying to work. She was focused, driven, doing everything she could to make her next mission a success, and she certainly didn’t need Pearl swooning all over her.

But it had been so very long…

How long had it been since Pearl had been well and properly fucked? Forced, coerced, and manipulative sex didn’t count, and neither did the tenuous sessions with Jasper buried beneath layers of pretense. Pearl missed those humid nights where Garnet picked her up off the ground and set a thudding rhythm between them or the feeling of Bismuth’s magma-hot breath on the back of her neck as she bent Pearl over and took her from behind. They all came at her beck and call and all she needed to do was curl a finger to invite them in.

Jasper could pick her up and press her against a wall. Jasper’s breath was warm like stoked charcoal. Jasper wanted her. Most importantly of all, Pearl wanted Jasper back.

Strange how that worked. Pearl never really expected that turn of events. For the better part of the afternoon, she fiddled with the hem of her skirt as she thought back to what she remembered about Stockholm Syndrome. She thought about survival and thought about everything that had happened since she watched planet Earth disappear. She thought about how she still desperately longed to return home to those she loved and about how Jasper changed. Somehow, that made her think about Rose. Angel, too. What did it mean when she fell in love with the gems who held her chains only to set her free? Did it mean she loved the gem or only the freedom? How much of those feelings were merely born of the need to survive?

Such philosophical thoughts quelled Pearl’s need for touch for the time being. Her arousal cooled to a simmer by the time she and Jasper crawled into bed together when the Midnight Sun dipped low in the sky. Pearl found a comfortable place tucked against one of Jasper’s arms. She still smelled like sweat from her day of training and the skin of her bicep was tacky, yet Pearl wanted nothing more than to rest her head there on her shoulder and breathe it in. Jasper yawned several times as they talked about the best post-training cool-down stretches until the yawns became snores.

Pearl lay awake for some time. Was this Stockholm Syndrome? Did she even care if it was?

 

* * *

 

Without a punching bag, Jasper was relegated to pushups in the main hall as her training warm-up. Pearl invited herself along and insisted that it would be much more effective if Jasper added some extra weight. Jasper agreed wholeheartedly, but she did not expect Pearl to saunter over and clamber up onto her back. And that was how Jasper found herself with Pearl lounging atop her as she continued her routine.

Jasper kept count under her breath. “Hundred’n two. ‘Unred’n three.”

Up, down. Up, down. It was difficult to concentrate when Jasper could feel the distinct, playful tugs at her scalp. Pearl was probably braiding her hair or something as she hummed her contentment.

“You have excellent form, you know that?” Pearl said.

Jasper’s face was red. It shouldn’t have been red yet. Usually she only got flushed once she got to five hundred. “’Undred’n four. ‘N’five.”

“Mmm.” Pearl braced both feet on the round of Jasper’s ass. “Are you trying to impress me?”

“No,” Jasper said too quickly. Now her neck was getting hot.

Pearl laughed and rolled onto her stomach. She hooked her arms around Jasper’s broad back (could barely manage to get them even halfway around her) and brought her lips close to Jasper’s ear. “You’ve already impressed me, you know. I don’t think you realize.”

Jasper’s arms hitched before she could finish her push-up. Suddenly every muscle in her body felt like wet paper. Quickly, she locked her elbows before she could humiliate herself by collapsing onto her face.

She had to keep her mind on her training. This was as good as any exercise Elimia could present her with: the ability to perform under the weight of distractions. Maintaining discipline.

Pearl slipped from her perch on Jasper’s back. The noodle feeling in Jasper’s arms did not go away immediately, but she forced herself to keep going regardless. “Hundr’d n’ ten. ‘N ‘leven. N’ twelve—”

Jasper should have been suspicious when she heard shuffling beside her, but she didn’t think much of it until Pearl’s face popped into view, only inches away from her own. “What are you going to do when you’re done warming up?”

So this was how it was going to be. Pearl was going to just lie there beneath her as casually as ever. Jasper noticed how her breasts pressed against Pearl every time she hit the low point in her pushups and wondered just how intentional this distraction was. Diamonds. Stars. “Uh, m’ probably gonna run through a routine or something. Make do.”

Pearl brought a finger to her chin in a good parody of deep thought. “You know what we should do?” she said, as if it was some revelation. “We should spar. And when you win, we can have sex.”

By the Diamonds, Jasper swore she could feel a knot of heat clench in her belly right at that very second. How could Pearl be so casual, yet so persuasive? All she could do was shake her head and chuckle. “If you want to have sex, we can. You know I’m really always up for it with you.”

Always, always. Did Pearl even realize how much Jasper wanted her?

“I know, but it’s more _fun_. Let’s get theatrical with it. I want you to play the part of the big brute warrior, and I’ll be the pearl, of course, and you come along and take me with a brusque yet tender force that makes me melt into your arms.” Pearl tucked her hands beneath her chin in an expression so full of hopeful innocence, Jasper wasn’t sure she’d heard correctly.

“Uh?”

“Oh, but I want you to finish your routine first. It’s better if you’re a little disheveled and glistening. You know I like it when you’ve got that rugged look about you.”

“Uh?” Jasper said again.

Pearl laughed and wrapped her arms around Jasper’s neck. “Oh, don’t look so surprised! You know how I feel about big quartz gems like you. Watching you train like this is, well, you’ve captured my attention.” That slim smile curled on her lips as she gazed up with half-lidded eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten what I wanted. I think I trust you now. I trust you to give me that.”

Jasper had long since lost track of her pushup count. Instead, she braced herself on her forearms over Pearl’s lounging body, savoring the closeness. “Are you sure?”

Lower lip clamped between her teeth, Pearl smiled and nodded. “I know you’ll do what I tell you to.”

“What if I hurt you?”

“Then I’ll tell you to stop.”

“What if I get…lost?”

“Lost?” Pearl looked confused.

How did Jasper explain it? How did she explain the sensation of total loss of control the time she had gotten Pearl incubating? It had been unintentional, irrational. Jasper remembered a fire taking over her body with pulsing urges unlike anything she’d ever had to contend with before. It overpowered her easily. No amount of Peridot’s protest or knowledge of potential consequences could pull her away from claiming Pearl like she was a mare in heat. Jasper lost herself that day. She had allowed herself to take control of Pearl and immediately lost herself.

Disgruntled, Jasper mumbled out some haphazard protests. “Got you incubating. Can’t happen again. I’d lose you.”

She furrowed her brow and went back to her pushup routine, but didn’t make it very far before a gentle hand on her cheek guided her gaze back to Pearl’s face. Her expression was gentle, even amused. “You think this would be the first time I’ve dealt with an uncontrollable, lustful lover before? Jasper, I can handle you. Take me. Take me hard, take me however you want. I’ll hold my own.”

A throb wracked Jasper’s loins, a stirring, followed by a fleeting bout of panic as she realized just how deep she had fallen into these desires. This was what Pearl wanted, though. Pearl wanted her to feel this. It was okay this time. She had to hold it together a little longer, though. Just a little longer until it was time for her to let go.

“I’m gonna,” Jasper said. It came out sounding like a warning.

“I think you underestimate how much I enjoy a rousing bout of sex,” Pearl said. “I’ve been canoodling with gems like you for thousands of years.”

“Never say that word again.”

“Sex?”

“ _Canoodling_.”

With a titter, Pearl wrapped her legs around Jasper’s waist and drew her in.

That was the end of the discussion. Jasper captured Pearl beneath her and went for the throat. She found the nook between her jaw and ear and claimed it as her own with a forceful kiss. She could feel Pearl’s pulse thrumming, fluttering like a little bird.

“Remember,” Pearl whispered into Jasper’s ear. “You’re the big, brutish warrior.”

“C’mere,” she rumbled as she tugged Pearl flush to her body.

“That’s better. Oh, yes!”

Like flipping a switch, Pearl went from poised and collected to the perfect picture of a damsel. She threw her arms over her head in a passive, relinquishing gesture. With every breath, she arched her back and puffed out her slim chest until her breasts all but burst from the plunging neckline of her uniform. Little inviting noises escaped from between her parted lips.

Something, something about it all triggered a response from deep in Jasper’s desires. Here she was crouched over the epitome of exposed vulnerability, and that carnal place inside of her knew exactly what she wanted to do. Instincts told her to take. Make Pearl hers. Now and forever, Pearl could be hers if Jasper put herself inside her and filled her, got her incubating with that beautiful, ripe belly, marked her—

This was the exact same feeling as before. Jasper was no stranger to this dominating _need_ , but the last time…the last time…

Still crouched over Pearl, Jasper shifted her weight to her knees, pressed her lips together, swallowed her urges. She wasn’t sure it was right. This was _Pearl_ beneath her. It felt wrong to chase after the unbridled lust heating up inside her. The last time had been so, so wrong.

The sensation of Pearl squeezing Jasper between her thighs brought her back to the moment.

“Jasper, you brute,” Pearl cooed. Her voice was already husky. “What are you going to do to me?”

Oh. Right. She was supposed to be playing along, not having an internal crisis about the whole thing. “I’m gonna take you.”

Pearl looked up at her with an expression of amusement. The corner of her lip was quirked up in a delicate, knowing way. “Then get on with it.”

Right. Jasper remembered that this was what Pearl _wanted_. Any vulnerability or weakness on her part was—and perhaps always had been—an act and this time, it seemed like Pearl was doing it all intentionally for the explicit purpose of riling Jasper up. After all, Pearl said that she had a lot of experience with quartz gems, so it made sense that she knew exactly how to wind Jasper around her finger.

Then and there, Jasper decided. Pearl said she trusted her, so Jasper would trust her right back. She trusted Pearl to know what she wanted and trusted her to put an end to it if she ever felt like she was in over her head.

Trust. A little leap of faith.

Jasper breathed, stepped to the edge, and took the dive.

She captured Pearl’s wrists in one hand and pulled them firm above her head. No resistance.

“Oo!” Pearl moaned and wiggled her hips.

With her other hand, Jasper fumbled for whatever she could grasp of Pearl’s clothing. She had so little fabric on her body that it was difficult to find a proper grip, but finally Jasper found the hem at Pearl’s waist and _pulled_. The sound of ripping fabric cut through the hall.

Pearl gasped. “Naughty.”

Red clouded Jasper’s vision to the point where she didn’t care. She thrust her hand between Pearl’s legs and groped at her prize. Pearl’s vulva was warm, and when Jasper bullied a finger past her labia, she was already sopping wet.

Jasper’s hips jerked forward as another throb struck her. There were so many things she wanted to do to Pearl—taste her, touch her, mark her, worship her—that she didn’t know where to start.

With one finger still pressed into the slit of Pearl’s sex, Jasper rubbed against her. Slick smeared along the channel and she could feel the firm bud of Pearl’s clit rolling beneath her touch. It felt swollen, demanding. Her hips jumped whenever Jasper pressed more firmly, then writhed for more whenever she eased up. All the while, little gasps poured forth.

“ _Yes! Ooh. Mm_ …”

She was beautiful. Jasper swore on the stars that she would be happy just looking at Pearl like this for the rest of her existence; sprawled out on the ground, begging for the touch of a single finger. And in that moment, Jasper knew only one thing. “You’re _mine_.”

Pearl moaned her assent. “ _Uh-huh_.”

The hunger took hold of Jasper then. She devoured Pearl’s throat in a kiss and worked her way down, down over the locked metal collar that denoted ownership, down to the open planes of her chest. She raked her teeth over pale flesh, fangs leaving light trailing marks on her journey to find one of Pearl’s breasts. She found a pert, enticing nipple and closed her lips around it with a kiss until Pearl arched up towards her and trilled. What a desperate sound it was, too: high in pitch and broken. Then Jasper pressed her finger inside of Pearl and got to listen to that sound again.

All of a sudden, the wrists in Jasper’s hand disappeared. They simply slipped away.

Pearl nudged at Jasper’s chest. “Mm, get up. I want to do something.”

Still stunned by how quickly and easily Pearl pulled from her grasp, Jasper did as she was told. She rocked back onto her haunches, staring at the palm of her empty hand as if she would find some answers there.

Maybe Pearl was just that good.

“Sit back,” Pearl said. She prodded Jasper again, bedroom eyes coaxing.

“What are we doing?”

“Why is your uniform still on? Take it off.”

Jasper let Pearl direct her where she wanted. She ended up sitting with her back against the wall, thighs parted so that Pearl could kneel between them.

Yes, still beautiful. Pearl’s dress was in tatters, hanging onto her shoulders with nothing but a whisper of fabric, useless to hide her breasts anymore. Her stockings had rolled down a few inches on her thighs, too, exposing a tantalizing expanse of new skin. Her expression was warm, relaxed as she leaned up to Jasper’s face. “I want to see you.”

Fair enough. Jasper nodded and wished away her uniform as she had done for Pearl before. She almost forgot the thrill of having nothing between them any longer. No fabric or leather. No diamond-shaped insignia.

Almost immediately, the flush on Pearl’s face turned a bright blue. She leaned back, pressed a hand to her cheek, and tried to hide a giddy smile behind her palm.

Pride swelled in Jasper’s chest. Like a peacock, she puffed herself up and may or may not have flexed a bit. Just a little. “You like that. C’mere, Pearl.”

“Brute,” Pearl said. She slipped a hand between Jasper’s thighs and helped herself to everything she wanted. She rubbed over Jasper’s clit in a passing greeting as she searched. Quick, experienced fingers eased their way into Jasper’s entrance and buried themselves knuckle-deep without hesitation.

How had the tables turned so fast? “I thought I was supposed to be the one on top,” Jasper said.

“Shh. You will. I’m just getting you ready.”

True to form, Pearl’s fingers worked their magic. They twisted and curled, three at a time, and found exactly what they were looking for.

Jasper saw white. She may have also whimpered. Maybe.

“Ah, yes, there you are,” Pearl breathed. Her shoulders buckled as she worked, pumping her fingers with a ruthless precision.

All Jasper could do was throw her head back and close her eyes. She felt each of Pearl’s fingertips tracing over the swollen length deep inside her. They beckoned, teased. The muscles in her thighs twitched uncontrollably and—was she whimpering again?

She felt a kiss on her cheek. One kiss.

“Come on,” Pearl whispered. Her breath tickled Jasper’s chin. “You can do it. Let it go.”

“Pearl…”

“Trust me. It will be okay. I _want_ it,” she plunged a forth finger inside. “I told you I want to see you. All of you. Every. Inch.”

It took every ounce of willpower for Jasper to crack her eyes open and stare Pearl in the face. She wanted to see her when it happened. The swelling, the volcanic heat rising with every curl of those fingers. Jasper was so used to forcing it back, she almost wasn’t sure what to expect when she gave in.

Pearl drew her hand away as Jasper everted at a leisurely pace. It was as if her body knew there was no rush. Jasper simply watched, feeling the muscles in her pelvis tensing rhythmically to force the rest of the length out.

It had been a while since she’d seen her cock. Ruddy in color, speckled with red and glistening with her own body’s eager fluids. And yet, it had betrayed Jasper once. She wasn’t sure how to feel about it as she looked down upon it now. Conflicted, perhaps. Torn between feelings of past treachery and the more primal need to use it to take her pleasure, quickly, forcefully, now, now, now—

Pearl felt differently. With a delighted sound, she wrapped her fist around the base of Jasper’s cock and bent down to greet it. “Oh,” she purred. “Oh, look at you.”

Jasper’s hands twitched against the floor, fingers raking against marble as she resisted the urge to grab Pearl by the back of the head and—

With two hands, Pearl coddled Jasper’s length. She twisted them up the shaft to the narrow, oozing tip, then back down to the thick base. Her fingers worked over each and every ridge along the underside, exploring like never before as milky slick seeped between them. There was a smile on her face. “Look at you. I remembered that you were big, but I thought my imagination gave you a little enhancement. I see you needed no help. _Look_ at you.”

Her toes curled. Breathing quickened. What did Jasper say to that? _Thank you? You’re welcome?_ Her mind was clouded in lust. She was losing herself.

Jasper moaned. Her hands clenched into fists as she fought against the urge to grab Pearl. Why did she want to grab her so badly?

And then Pearl’s face dipped out of view.

The sensation of a wet, warm mouth closing over the tip of her cock was enough to end any last thread of logical thought in Jasper’s mind.

She watched Pearl’s lips stretch around the girth of the first few inches and remembered feeling impressed.

She didn’t expect Pearl to keep going.

With a delighted hum, Pearl bobbed her head. Her cheeks hollowed, then bulged, and Jasper could see the distinct outline of the tip poking at the inside of Pearl’s mouth before she tilted her head and bobbed again.

This is what it felt like to be swallowed. Jasper couldn’t believe it. Her hands clenched and unclenched helplessly at her sides as she surrendered herself to Pearl’s mouth. And tongue. And hands. And were those teeth she felt? If they were, they were light and delicate and perfect and made Jasper shiver as they raked up the underside ridges.

“F-fuck…”

Jasper tilted her head back to catch her breath, and when she looked back down, Pearl was gazing up at her with clear, bright eyes. Mouth still stretched around Jasper’s cock and hands kneading up the shaft, she watched Jasper’s reaction. Was that triumph in her eyes? Satisfaction? Delight?

When she pulled away, her lips glistened. Saliva mixed with Jasper’s slick dripped down Pearl’s chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

“I’m getting ahead of myself,” she said. She sat back up on her knees, smoothed her hair back into place as best she could with sticky hands, and dabbed at her mouth once more. And then, without warning, she stood up.

“Uh?” was Jasper’s most intelligent attempt at expressing disappointment.

Pearl stepped back, wiggling the remnants of her dress over her shoulders. “Oh, no,” she said. “I’m escaping. It looks like you’re going to have to come catch me.”

Jasper watched with jaw dropped as Pearl sauntered away. She looked over her shoulder, hiding a giggle behind her palm, to make sure she was being watched. And then, with a skip in her step, she darted off down the hall.

The flash of movement alone was enough to trigger Jasper into action. The instinctual need to chase, hunt, capture drove her pulse into a frenzy. Just as Pearl turned the corner and disappeared, Jasper scrambled up. She took the first few paces down on all fours, running like a beast, until she hit the doorway where Pearl disappeared and skidded on the marble floors.

Bare feet weren’t good for chasing. And yet, something about it felt good. It felt _right_. Naked, feral, aroused, and chasing down her prey. Every single one of her senses piqued. Her body vibrated with it.

With a grunt, Jasper scrabbled her way through the threshold and stopped. It didn’t take her long to spot the tatters of Pearl’s dress cast off in the hallway. Jasper went to it, panting, and snatched it up off the ground. She put it to her mouth, tasted the fabric, breathed in the pheromones that lingered.

Jasper’s mind thrummed. _Pearl. Pearl. Pearl._

All it took was a single sound. The tiniest creak from a room down the hall was enough to alert Jasper that her quarry was near, and so she swooped into action.

She shoved open the door to her office with enough force to make the hydraulics wheeze.

No Pearl.

Disappointing. She huffed and continued down the hall. At once, she noticed that the bedroom door was already open, a tell-tale sign that Jasper would find what she was looking for. With a clenched-teeth grin, she stormed the doorway, putting herself in the threshold to block any attempts at escape—

There, on the bed, Pearl waited. Naked but for her collar and boots, she lounged on her stomach. The curve of her arched back gave way to the purposeful rise of her ass. She presented herself. Offered herself. With her cheek resting in one palm, she looked back at Jasper and said, “You found me.”

The thread that tethered Jasper to her senses snapped. She plunged into freefall.

Somehow she made it to the bed, bullied herself over Pearl’s body, and pressed fangs into the back of her neck. Jasper mounted her. Anticipation rattled her bones as she brawled for contact and control. Her cock pressed up against the small of Pearl’s back and Jasper rolled her hips to satiate herself with whatever bit of friction she could gain. “I’m gonna do what I want to you,” she said. It was meant as a final warning.

Pearl turned her head to the side and made a wistful little sound. “Don’t be gentle.”

Their bodies tangled, pushed together at every joint and junction possible except for one. And, unfortunately for Jasper, it was the one she wasn’t quite sure how to resolve. She still rubbed uselessly against Pearl’s back, unsure of how to slot their bodies together without pulling away. The last thing she wanted was to release her prey, and so she humped aimlessly because she was too stubborn to let go and could have spent all evening like that if Pearl hadn’t taken initiative. She twisted beneath Jasper until she could wrap her fist around the base of her cock. Nudged at her with an elbow to the stomach. “Come on. Back up.”

Pearl received a petulant growl for her troubles and responded in kind with an even more insistent elbow.

Eventually, Jasper sidled back a few inches. Their skin peeled apart.

“Back, back, back…” Pearl insisted.

Jasper shuffled even further and was rewarded as Pearl guided her with an experienced hand. A wet, cloying heat closed around the tip of her cock and Jasper knew that was where she belonged. Without even waiting for Pearl to relinquish her control, Jasper lunged forward and took herself to the hilt.

Warmth. Pearl’s body was expecting her. It was giving, embracing Jasper as she penetrated as deep as she could and then no more. If she sat still enough, she could feel Pearl fluttering from the inside. She didn’t stay still for long, however. No patience, no finesse: Jasper grabbed Pearl by the waist and began to fuck her in earnest as red clouded the corners of her vision.

 “ _Oh, ohh!_ You’re big,” Pearl gasped. “I forgot how big—oh, yes give me all of it.”

This is what battle felt like: the adrenaline pounded in her chest and ears, the instinct took over rational thought, the exertion burned into her muscles. It felt the same and yet so, so different. Jasper didn’t have to abandon a part of herself to get through the experience. She thrived, she lived in the moment knowing only that what was happening was a good thing. Pleasure, trust, connection, desire…

Beneath her, Pearl droned in bliss. Her noises hitched every time Jasper thrust into her. She lay flat, pinned by Jasper’s weight and enthusiastic rutting, but she didn’t seem to mind. Nor did she seem to mind that they’d inched their way across the bed with every thrust until Pearl was all but clinging to the edge of the mattress with both hands. “More. _Harder!_ ” she cried.

The bedframe smacked against the wall. Unbridled, unabashed. Loud and animalistic in a way that could have looked violent from the outside looking in, but for the shrill sounds of delight that poured from Pearl.

Pearl loved it. Stars, how she loved it. No thrust was deeper than she could handle, no pace too brutal. As Jasper sank her teeth into the back of her neck to hold her where she belonged, Pearl was right there pushing back against her, welcoming it. She sang the word ‘yes’ like a nightingale sang at dusk. Pride swelled in Jasper’s chest, knowing for the first time that this was how it was _supposed_ to be: Pearl was _hers_ and Jasper satisfied her with her strength, prowess, virility. For once in her life, Jasper felt like she was enough.

Pearl was Jasper’s. Jasper was Pearl’s.

Two gems melded together so close, their bodies may as well have been one. This had to be right, this had to be written into Jasper’s purpose in this universe. Why else would this feel so perfect? It felt as natural as battle, as blissful as bloodlust. The Diamonds must have created her to do this, they _must_ have—

A hand fumbled over Jasper’s heavy abdomen and gave it a ginger squeeze. Sparks of pleasure raced down to Jasper’s toes.

 “You’re g-getting full,” Pearl said. “Turn me over. Jasper, turn me over.”

Jasper asked no questions. She released Pearl from her jaws and rolled her over into a tangle of blankets and pillows before descending upon her again to taste the beads of sweat that glistened on Pearl’s collarbones and between her breasts. She tasted like an ocean breeze, briny and sweet. Jasper moaned her appreciation. She almost didn’t notice when Pearl reached between them and grasped the base of Jasper’s cock. She lifted her hips and, far too soon, pulled Jasper from her sheath.

Perhaps an undue amount of whining ensued. Jasper would later deny she made such unflattering noises.

“Shh-hh,” Pearl soothed her. “You’re full.” With that, she pressed her thighs together and guided Jasper’s cock between them. It fit snugly into the makeshift channel, already so slippery with Pearl’s slick. “Like this. Fuck me. Just like that.”

A skeptical huff was Jasper’s only response. It felt like a cruel trick to make her trade a warm cunt for thighs, as nice as those thighs were. She nudged Pearl’s legs up over her shoulder and shuffled herself into position. The first experimental thrust was a tenuous one. Her cock slid between the plush of Pearl’s thighs and, when she hilted herself, the tip poked out the other side.

Right then and there, Jasper decided that all her prior whining was unnecessary, because this was actually rather nice. She could see Pearl’s face, she could bend her in half, she could still fuck her with full, deep strokes—

Pearl made a little hiccoughing noise and shivered.

That was unexpected. Jasper wanted to make Pearl do that again. She thrust again, watching with wild, glazed eyes.

This time, Pearl rocked her hips against Jasper’s cock. “ _Ooh, keep doing that!_ ”

Far be it from Jasper to deny Pearl what she wanted. With a grunt, Jasper obliged, every sense piqued to figure out what it was she was doing so right that earned those little noises from Pearl. She wanted to know, wanted to keep doing it. The answer lay between Pearl’s legs. Each time Jasper thrust, the underside of her cock rubbed up against her, through the channel of her sopping, swollen folds and against her clit. Each ridge and bump texture rumbled over Pearl’s most sensitive flesh. Again. Then again. And again.

“ _Oh, yes!_ ” Pearl shuddered.

Jasper’s belly was hot, swollen, protruding outward in a precarious display. She was sure Pearl could feel it pressing against the back of her thighs—they both knew what was coming. Jasper could only grip onto Pearl harder as she braced herself for involuntary, impending release.

A final pulse of muscles broke the dam. Jasper cried out as she pushed forward, the first rope of magmatic slurry falling across Pearl’s belly. It was almost boiling from the heat of her core, thick and steaming in the evening air. It painted Pearl’s skin with a familiar milky gloss speckled with red iron. And when she pulled back, it coated the inside of her thighs, too. Oozing, sweltering. Jasper rammed between them again, lost in her thrumming white world of ecstasy.

Somewhere in the distance, Pearl sung words of praise. She said she was a good girl, said she was giving her so much. The pitch of her voice jumped and quivered in frantic delight.

Jasper pulled back just in time for a hot gush to spill right over Pearl’s clit and send her over the edge into her own shrill release.

It was difficult to discern what happened over the next few minutes. As her body pushed and twitched to force every last bit of cum out, Jasper was at its mercy. At one point, she looked down to see Pearl with her eyes rolled back and her mouth open. At another, she watched as Pearl scooped up a handful of the slippery, gooey mess and purred. Then Pearl reached down and let Jasper thrust sluggishly into her palms. More hazy words of praise echoed as Jasper wandered through her orgasm.

_You can do it._

_Look at how much you made for me._

_Almost done. That feels good, hmm?_

_Come on, fall over to this side. Don’t fall on top of me._

_There’s a good girl. You deserve a break._

When Jasper opened her eyes next, her mouth was dry and her tongue felt heavy. The space between her shoulders was sore. One of her arms had fallen asleep.

Beside her, Pearl was propped up on a decent stack of pillows, reading a book. For the most part, there was no sign she had been coated in a layer of cum except for the lingering tacky shine to her skin. It seemed the worst of the mess had been cleaned up with the sheets, as they now lay in a sopping pile on the floor beside the bed.

How much time had she lost? Jasper groaned and tried to sit up.

Immediately, Pearl closed the book and shoved it back inside her gem. “You’re awake!”

Jasper huffed. “I didn’t mean to go quiescent.”

“It’s alright. You worked hard.”

Propped up on both elbows, Jasper managed a sheepish laugh. Her sore shoulders protested. “That was, uh,” she tried to find the right word. Intense? Perfect? Beautiful? “That was fun.”

Pearl sidled right up next to her, wrapped her arms around Jasper’s neck to bring their faces close. “Oh, yes. It was wonderful. I felt safe with you.” And then, unexpectedly, she pressed a kiss to Jasper’s cheek. It felt sincere. “Thank you.”

“I felt safe with you, too,” Jasper said. It was true, of course, but how did she explain that she felt _more_ than safe? Was there a word for what she felt right now? Warm and light-headed and achy and flustered all at once. Was there a word?

Together they nestled on the bare bed. Jasper was warm enough for the both of them and so Pearl tucked herself close to her chest. She traced the stripes on Jasper’s body with her fingers.

“What is fusion like?” Jasper asked.

She could feel Pearl smile against the plush of her breasts. “It’s wonderful. It’s even better than what we just did. It transcends the physical nature of sex.”

“Even when you’re with a different gem type?”

“ _Especially_ when you’re with a different gem.”

Jasper thought about that for a good moment. She considered everything she knew about fusion and came up lacking. “Why?”

“There is balance.” Pearl’s fingers tickled over the red hue of Jasper’s bicep. “There’s balance and strength when you combine with a gem that you trust. You give them your light, knowing that they will find the best parts of you and help them flourish. You become someone else. You become better. In some ways, a fusion can help you feel complete.”

Complete. Strong. Balanced. Jasper considered these things with furrowed brow. She hated to admit how tempting it sounded.

“It’s the ultimate connection,” Pearl continued. “A perfect state of being.”

Against her better judgement, Jasper blurted, “Would you fuse with me?”

Pearl looked shocked at first. Her eyes went wide and her lips parted. But it wasn’t long before she giggled into her palm. “Yes, yes I would.”

Jasper’s cheeks were quite red. She felt the hair on the nape of her neck become bristled and puffy. “Okay. Just checking.” The knowing smile on Pearl’s face was infuriating, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She hoped Pearl would find something more interesting to turn her attention towards so they could drop the subject.

Thankfully, Pearl soon became enthralled with the plume of hair on Jasper’s mons. She idly pet it, ran her fingers through it, tugged gently at the cowlick that formed at the apex. “I wish we didn’t have to be so cautious about it,” she said.

“Hmm?”

“I wish we didn’t have to be so cautious about sex, I mean. I hate having to worry about a geode when I’m with you. I just want to enjoy you. I like having you _in_ me.” Pearl plucked at a tuft of hair in irritation.

Jasper hissed. “Ow.”

“Sorry.” Pearl went back to stroking Jasper’s mons with a decidedly gentler touch. “I remember towards the beginning of the rebellion, Rose found a way to keep me from incubating. She said she wanted me to be free to do what I wished without having to worry about geodes all the time and, well,” she sighed. “It was nice while it lasted. I lost it after being vaporized during the war, but I remember how uninhibited it made me feel. So simple, too. Just a little disk that went up inside me and that was it.”

“A disk?”

“Mmhmm, a little cap. Only about this big, yet it worked wonders.” Pearl made a little circle with her fingers to demonstrate. “I later discovered that humans have another thing similar, but that’s another story altogether. Humans have such intricate and varied means of contraception, it’s really—”

“Wait.” Jasper frowned, brows furrowed as a little detail in her memory sparked. She remembered gold dust clinging to her tongue and the eyes of an entire royal court at her back. She recalled nasal little moans and demanding hands in her hair. And then she remembered the feeling of a small, hard cap tapping against her claws somewhere deep inside Yellow Diamond’s pearl, her _personal_ pearl.

What was a cap doing inside Yellow Diamond’s pearl?

What did it mean that her leader’s pearl was equipped to prevent her from incubating? Why would she need that? Certainly Yellow Diamond herself wasn’t—

And then another memory pushed to the forefront. A voice.

_You act like you thought having a pearl was going to be cheap. Maybe you should have considered that before you bought an incubating one. I’ve got ways to keep that from happening, by the way, if you’re interested._

Of course. Of _course_.

“Pearl,” Jasper breathed. “I know where to get you a cap.”

 

* * *

 

“Welcome back.”

Jasper stepped into the brothel and coughed up the Sector 7 smog clotted in her lungs. She was greeted with that Cheshire Charoite and a parlor bathed in artificial light. The rows of open doors along the back wall were empty at first glance, but Charoite’s greeting acted like a rallying call. With the sound of jangling chains, the pearls all scrambled into place, each standing beside their respective doorways. Jasper felt their eyes on her, at least a dozen pairs.

A familiar uncomfortable sensation settled on Jasper’s shoulders. She kept her eyes on Charoite and focused on what she was here for as she approached the counter. “Hi,” she said.

“What can I do for you, today?” Charoite leaned on the counter, all charm and pleasantries.

“Last time I was here, you said you had a way to prevent a pearl from incubating.” Jasper said. “I’m interested.”

The smile on Charoite’s face widened. Amusement twitched at the corners of her eyes. “Ah, I knew you’d come around to it. Geodes can be a terrible inconvenience, can’t they?”

A moan from the open room behind the counter drew Jasper’s attention. It sounded like a gem in pain. Jasper lifted her chin to glance over Charoite’s head, but couldn’t see beyond a stack of chests.

Charoite kept talking. “So just one cap for you today? Any preference in the material?”

The moan drifted out again.

“Whatever is most comfortable, I guess.” Jasper tried not to be distracted. She just wanted to get in here, get what she came for, and leave.

“My clients never seem to notice a difference,” Charoite mused. She was already bustling behind the counter, pulling out trays of caps and setting them on the counter. Plastic ones, metal ones, glossy ones. Different sizes, different concavities. “You should barely feel it.”

The ignorance of the statement had Jasper’s face heating up. She made sure to meet Charoite’s eyes when she said, “More comfortable for the pearl, I mean.”

Charoite paused, looking dumbstruck for a moment. Then she threw her head back and laughed like it was the funniest thing in the whole world. “Dear, it hardly matters!” she said. “They don’t complain. It’s better than the alternative, am I right?” She leaned toward Jasper like they were about to share some secret joke and laughed some more.

Jasper did not laugh with her. 

Another moan from the back room. This time, a small, olivine-tinted pearl bustled through the door. She looked slightly disheveled, her brow crumpled against the gem on her forehead in worry. Her gem was surrounded by the golden cage that all these captive gems were trapped in, except hers was not bound to any chain. All she wore was a thin, loose shift dress that came to her knees. She scuttled her way up to Charoite’s side and tugged at her sleeve.

Charoite turned and looked at her. “What?”

The pearl did not say anything, only looked up at her with beseeching eyes and tugged at her sleeve again.

“We have a _guest_ ,” Charoite hissed and gestured towards Jasper. “She’s done it a hundred thousand times before, just have her get on with it already.”

Guilt resonated around in that little pearl’s empty eyes as she glanced once at Jasper, then fled into the back room.

As if nothing had happened, Charoite addressed Jasper once more. “Where were we? Ah, yes, a cap for your pearl. Where did you say you got her, again?”

“Long story.”

“Ah, yes, I remember. ‘Long story.’” Charoite smiled. She pulled out another tray of caps for Jasper to browse. “If you’re considering selling, I’m in the market to add to my collection. Is she pretty?”

Jasper stiffened. “She’s not for sale.”

“Everything has a price, dear. Just name it.”

The stony silence that followed was answer enough.

_Just get a cap. Just ignore the sounds from the back room, pick out a cap that will fit Pearl, and leave._

_Ignore the eyes on you._

_You’re not like all the other gems that come in here._

_You’re exactly like all the other gems that come in here. You came in here, you’re going to buy what you want, and then you’re going to leave._

The noises from the back room sounded more like crying now.

Jasper hadn’t even decided on a cap yet. She barely even looked at them. It was overwhelming, really. How could she concentrate?

This place. These pearls. That grinning charoite.

One of the pearls standing chained in her doorway shifted and Jasper caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. There were bruises on her thighs.

That was all it took. Charoite caught the glance and immediately piped up. “She’s 20 for a half hour, or 100 if you want to get her incubating.”

Visceral disgust rose in Jasper’s chest. She hoped to mask the grimace and keep her expression neutral. Nothing here felt right. It felt dirty and corrupt, more so than the last time she came to this place. Charoite expected Jasper to chuckle along with her as she made her comments and sold her sordid wares. Even when Jasper didn’t play along, she just shrugged and continued on and it made Jasper feel complicit. Tainted by association. It made her feel like she was being dragged back into a sticky, smothering tar pit that she’d only just crawled out from. It made her feel shame. Worst of all, it made her feel weak. Helpless?

Why wasn’t she doing anything? What could she do?

There was a pretty white cap trimmed in gold that reminded Jasper of Pearl. It came in three sizes and so she picked them up and examined them, tried to imagine which one would suit her best. If one didn’t fit, she could always take it back and get a new one, Jasper figured, but she really did not want to come back.

A small cap looked good to her but, then again, most gems were small in comparison to Jasper. Maybe medium was best…

The olivine pearl darted out of the back room again. She latched onto Charoite’s sleeve and pulled frantically, guttural squeaks eked from the back of her throat as she vied for attention.

She only earned a frustrated reaction from Charoite. “Pearl!” she barked. That characteristic grin tightened into a gritted snarl as she turned on her pearl. “Not now.”

Yet the pearl refused to budge. She stood her ground, desperate and fearful. All the other pearls in the room tensed up. They shifted, shrunk back into their doorways, turned their heads away. A soft, collective gasp whisked around the room, so soft it was almost imperceptible.

“Pearl. Go.” Charoite pointed.

A whimper echoed from the back room. So much pain, so much distress.

When the pearl did not retreat, Charoite raised her arm. She pulled it back, palm open, and brandished the angled gem at the center as the pearl flinched back.

Jasper did not even think, only acted. She reached over the counter and grabbed Charoite by the wrist before her hand could strike down. The force all but twisted Charoite around. Her hand splayed with surprise as she tried to pull it from Jasper’s grip and was entirely unsuccessful, powerless against a quartz soldier. She looked up at Jasper with shock, offense.

“Don’t hit her,” Jasper said through clenched teeth. It felt like her chest was going to burst, like she was trying to yell and no sound was coming out.

With that infuriating look of utter indignation still plastered on her face, Charoite said, “Why? She’s only a pearl.”

That was it. Something snapped inside Jasper so quickly and so forcefully, she didn’t quite know what was happening. It just happened. One moment she held Charoite’s wrist, the next she had Charoite’s head between her hands and was squeezing it between her palms so hard she felt something pop. And yet she hadn’t vaporized, so Jasper brought Charoite’s head down on the sales counter with every ounce of force she had.

Once.

Twice. Trays with caps scattered everywhere.

Three times.

Another pop followed by a cloud of vapor. Jasper’s hands clapped together as the mass between them turned to smoke and a charoite gem clattered to the floor.

Screaming. At first, Jasper thought the sound was just a ringing in her ears, but it was screaming. It wasn’t her voice, it wasn’t Charoite. And yet there were screams.

The pearls cried out in frantic unison. Some covered their mouths in horror, others clutched onto their doorways in fear. The olivine pearl that had been flinching under the threat of Charoite’s open hand a few moments ago was shrieking, too. She staggered away from Jasper and ran into the back room again, clearly afraid of the big gem who had just walked in and destroyed her owner.

It was chaos.

What was she doing? Stars, what was Jasper doing? This had not been the plan, not in the least. Jasper stood there frozen like a deer in headlights as she watched the disorder around her unfold. Hysterical pearls. Merchandise scattered on the floor. Jasper stood amid it all taking deep breaths as she tried to figure out what she was going to do.

The first thing she did was turn back to the door and smash the console with her fist. She heard the hydraulics go offline and was satisfied that no one was going to stumble into the brothel while she was still here.

The pearls wailed louder.

Jasper turned to the gaggle of pearls cowering in their rooms and approached them with open palms. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “I’m going to help you.”

It felt weird, foreign to say something like that. Jasper was used to fighting missions, not rescue missions. She killed, not liberated.

Maybe the pearls sensed this. They didn’t stop screaming.

Fuck. Well, maybe Jasper just had to show them that she meant no harm. She tromped over to one of the open doors and peered inside. Sure enough, a pearl was wedged in the back of the room between her cot and the wall. Her arms wrapped around herself as she shivered, and when she saw Jasper looming in the doorway, she scrabbled back in fear.

“C’mon, I’m alright,” Jasper insisted. She reached out.

The pearl’s breathing quickened in panic. She looked like a trapped animal, eyes darting all over the place.

Just a couple inches more and Jasper might be able to touch her hand. She took another step—

Quicker than Jasper expected, the pearl darted out from behind the cot and slipped past her out the door. She ran in a blind panic and only managed to reach the parlor couch before the chain that connected her gem to the wall pulled taut and yanked her backwards with enough force to make her lose her footing. With an unexpectedly hefty thud, she hit the ground.

Jasper winced. “No, no, that’s…”

The pearl looked dazed and woozy. And yet the moment she saw Jasper coming towards her, the fear took over again. She scampered up, ran past Jasper again, and hid back in her room.

Frustration began to set in. Jasper didn’t know how much time she had here to do…whatever it was she was trying to do. Set the pearls free? Smuggle them out? Jasper didn’t know what she was doing. Didn’t have a fucking clue.

She turned to the pearls again, tone inching towards irritated. “Look, I know you can understand me. Just quiet down and let me help you.”

They still screamed and panicked.

Well, fine. Jasper was fine if they were afraid of her. She was still going to do _something_ to help them.

With renewed purpose, Jasper went into the nearest room. The pearl was huddled near a bucket of water in the corner, but Jasper did not reach for her. Instead, she went to the back wall where the chain was bolted into the masonry.

Maybe Jasper couldn’t get the pearls to cooperate, but sure as the stars were bright, Jasper could fuck up some metal and rock. With both hands, she grabbed onto the end of the chain and gave it one solid pull. The metal groaned and buckled. One snap, then another. Two bolts fell to the ground and the pearl was free.

That was easy enough to do. Jasper went from one room to the next, wrenching chains asunder. It felt good, it felt _right_.

It felt rebellious.

And even though the pearls scurried away from her in fear, Jasper knew she was doing right by them. They were free. The more and more she liberated, the more they darted out of their respective rooms and ran to join their sisters. Sometimes they clumped three to four in a room, all dragging their chains behind them as they huddled and avoided Jasper vehemently. If Jasper ever got too close for their liking, they would all wait for her to turn her back before shuffling around in the hallway behind her as if she couldn’t hear them clinking and clanging their way around.

It was fine. Jasper accepted that she was big and frightening and they weren’t going to like her. She probably looked a lot like many of their ‘clients.’ They were not screaming anymore, at least. But they were scared.

When the last chain was pulled from the wall, Jasper stood back with her hands on her hips and proudly surveyed her achievement. A dozen or so free pearls. Still all hiding in their rooms.

“You can go now,” Jasper said to them. She gestured toward the door. “See? I’m letting you out.”

To demonstrate, she grabbed onto the edge of the door with one hand and pulled it open. Without the hydraulics, it took some strength, but it was nothing Jasper couldn’t handle.

The pearls didn’t budge.

Jasper frowned. This was becoming aggravating.

What followed was not one of Jasper’s shining moments. She tried to herd the flock of pearls toward the door, but it turned out that frightened pearls were not so easy to herd. They were a slippery bunch. Jasper could get up behind them with her arms outstretched and chase—there was no better word for it—the lot of them in the direction of the door, but one by one they all peeled off from the group and, by the time Jasper made it across the parlor, all the pearls were back huddled in a room.

She made several attempts and the pearls outsmarted her every single time.

Jasper gave up shortly after and pulled out her communicator.

Twenty miles away, Pearl squawked, “You did _what?!_ ”

“She was going to hit her, Pearl!” Jasper explained again. “I just lost it, alright? I didn’t mean to do this, it just happened. It happened really fast.”

“Let me see. Turn the screen around.”

Reluctantly, Jasper aimed the communicator toward the huddled mass of pearls on the back wall of the parlor. They all stared back at her with wild, wary eyes.

“Oh my stars,” Pearl murmured.

“I pulled off their chains,” Jasper said. “I keep trying to get them to leave. Why won’t they go? Maybe if you tell them to go, they will. Maybe they need to see a pearl to trust that it’s okay.”

Pearl went very quiet. “Oh, Jasper.”

“What?”

“Oh, Jasper.” Pearl looked at her with soft eyes and explained, “They have nowhere to go. Look at them. They’ve been nothing but what’s between their legs their whole lives. They can’t do a thing.”

That gave Jasper pause. What would these pearls do if she let them out that door? Waiting beyond the dark alleyway was a sector polluted with smog and terribly cruel gems who would be happy to pluck them up before they even had a chance to cross the street.

Of course.

Of course they didn’t want to leave. Of course they were scared. Why hadn’t Jasper realized before?

Maybe Jasper just didn’t like to think about what it was like to be a pearl.

With a sigh, Jasper pressed her hand to her forehead and bent over her communicator. “What do I do, Pearl? I don’t want to leave them here. It’s—it’s fucking horrible. I don’t know what to do.”

There was a strange expression on Pearl’s face. Her eyes were shining and her lower lip was tucked between her teeth. She watched Jasper for a moment longer and then said, “Can you get them back here to me? Can you smuggle them out somehow? Even if it’s just their gemstones. You have your destabilizer.”

Jasper gave it a moment of thought. “Yeah. Yeah, I can get them back. But what are we going to do with them then?”

“Trust me.”

Jasper did.

It still felt wrong when she took out her destabilizer and turned it on. She could tell the pearls knew what was about to happen and she could tell they didn’t believe her when she said it would be okay. Being destabilized didn’t hurt—it just tingled and felt weird and then everything would go away. It would be easier if they didn’t fight, she told them.

They fought anyway.

Well, they ran. There wasn’t much they could do to fight. These pearls weren’t like _her_ rebel Pearl and so they didn’t summon weapons and they didn’t shout intimidating threats at her. They just scattered and hid when Jasper came for them. There was no thrill, no challenge. It was nothing like battle.

The first pearl went down easily. She was simply slower than her sisters and Jasper managed to wedge the business end of the destabilizer against her shoulder blades as she tried to sneak past. Without a sound, she went up in a cloud of vapor. Her gem, still ensnared in its wire cage and dangling chain, dropped to the ground.

One down, too many more to go.

Jasper found it was easiest to corner them in one of the rooms and simply nab them with the destabilizer as they tried to run past. Four went down easily like that. One didn’t even try to run from Jasper—she just hunched in the corner of her room and covered her face with her hands. Jasper caught two more trying to hide under the furniture in the parlor, their positions exposed by the chains that snaked out from under the couch. Five were crouched behind the sales counter amid the boxes. Three more were caught trying to scurry back into their rooms from their various other hiding spots, but were not quick enough to evade capture.

Jasper counted sixteen in total. To their credit, she was a little out of breath as she stood in the middle of the parlor, destabilizer in hand, and waited to ensure she’d gotten all of them.

This was for their own good. Pearl would know what to do with them. That was the only thought that kept Jasper’s guilt at bay as she surveyed the myriad of caged pearl gemstones that littered the floor. Satisfied that there were no more pearls left running about—no more pitter-patter of little feet—Jasper put down the destabilizer and began to gather up the gemstones.

She pulled a bedsheet off a cot and laid it out on the floor. As she retrieved each pearl, she set them in the middle of the sheet in a little pile. A little mountain of caged gems and chains took shape. All sixteen of them. Safe. Jasper bundled them up in the sheet, tied it tight so none would fall out, and tucked it up under her arm for safe-keeping on the shuttle back.

The cap. Jasper almost forgot about the cap, and might have walked out of the brothel without it, had she not had to step over a mess of three dozen of them just to get to the door. The place looked ransacked.

Jasper set down her bundle of pearls and took a moment to pick through the mess. She remembered she liked the white cap with the gold trim for Pearl and, well, since Charoite wasn’t here to haggle, she figured she’d take all three sizes. Just in case. The trick was finding them again in all that mess…

She found the medium and the small size easily, since they were still in their original upturned tray, but where was the large—?

A moan from the back room made Jasper pause. It was a small, meek sound.

Without Charoite there to keep Jasper away, she immediately dropped what she was doing and sought out the source of the sound. She stepped over upended boxes and nudged Charoite’s gem aside with her boot as she poked her head into the back room to see what was making that sound.

There in the dark amid looming stacks of product and storage lay a pearl on a cot. Even in the dim light, Jasper could see that her coloration was a canary yellow. She was naked and on her back, thighs parted. Crouched at her side was that olivine pearl. They clutched each other’s hands so tightly Jasper could see their knuckles. And then the yellow pearl’s body shuddered and tensed and her head tilted back with an expression of pain. She groaned. She pushed. Her belly was rounded in a petite, subtle way that Jasper recognized. The pearl was in labor with a geode.

In the doorway, Jasper stopped. For the first time since she’d entered the brothel, she felt like an intruder.

She didn’t belong here.

A gasp interrupted her thoughts. The olivine pearl sat up and looked straight at her.

Very much an intruder.

“Hey,” Jasper put her hands out and spoke in a low, calm voice. Talking hadn’t made any of the other pearls cooperate better, but she didn’t know what else to try. “Hey, there. I’m not gonna hurt you. Take it easy.”

Both pearls stared at her. The olivine one had wide pupils wreathed in green fire and the canary one had something deep in her gaze.

Jasper took a step into the room. Neither of the pearls moved.

“I’m gonna get you out of here,” she said.

No reaction from either of the pearls.

She got closer. Close enough to see the beads of sweat stuck to the skin of the canary pearl. Her belly rose and fell with each heavy breath. There was a damp spot on the cot between her legs and Jasper tried not to let her eyes wander there. Whether out of courtesy or out of sheer dread at what she would see, she wasn’t sure. Whatever was happening, it probably wasn’t going to look good. The pearl moaned in distress again.

Finally, Jasper crouched down next to the cot. Humidity and tangy-scented air clung to her tongue and she said, “That looks like it hurts.”

The olivine pearl made a noise in the back of her throat and shifted away, but she didn’t go far. She still held so tightly onto her companion’s hand and wouldn’t leave her side.

How the fuck was Jasper supposed to do this? What was she supposed to do with a pearl in labor? It felt cruel to destabilize her like this, so vulnerable and distressed. Jasper was used to destabilizing unruly, rebellious gems and fighting creatures that warranted a good fist to the face. But here, looking down at this exhausted little pearl, Jasper didn’t want to touch her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. How long would it take for her to have this geode? Could she wait that long? What if Charoite regenerated? Or one of the pearls? Jasper had time, but she didn’t have _that_ much time.

The canary pearl looked up at Jasper and met her eyes. There was something strangely familiar in them that Jasper couldn’t quite put her finger on at first. She looked almost calm as she gazed up at her and Jasper could see millennia reflected in her eyes. It remined her a little bit of Pearl, somehow, and yet for all the galaxies in the universe, Jasper would not have been able to describe it. Was it a soul she saw? Blatant intelligence and actualization pierced beyond the veil in a way that struck Jasper at her very core. She would remember that feeling for the rest of her existence.

She saw Pearl. Not _her_ rebel Pearl, but another Pearl. Pearl saw her right back.

Then she looked up at the olivine pearl and saw Pearl, too. Not her rebel Pearl, but yet another Pearl.

It made sense, now.

Clarity made way for the memories, memories of every single time Jasper had ever seen a pearl in her life. The pearls in the barracks, the pearls at the sides of their noble owners, the pearls in the Nursery, the pearls on the streets. Memories gave way to growing disgust. Disgust with Homeworld, with her Diamond—all the diamonds—and with herself. It was a bitter mouthful to swallow, but she gulped it right down because she knew she deserved to taste it. If she was going to do anything about it, she needed to feel its sour weight in her belly. And there inside her, it bloomed.

With determination, Jasper said, “I’m getting you out of here.”

Canary Pearl quivered again with another contraction. A feeble arm reached out towards Jasper, fingers outstretched.

Jasper did not dare move. She watched as Canary Pearl reached for her to see what she was going to do.

She wrapped her hand around the tongs of the inactive destabilizer tucked into Jasper’s belt. With tired, beseeching eyes, she stared at Jasper for a moment, then looked back at Olivine Pearl. Like that, the two shared an unspoken conversation borne from millennia robbed of speech. And then, unexpectedly, Olivine Pearl reached out and grasped onto the destabilizer, too.

Like that, they waited. Expectant.

Jasper pulled the destabilizer from her belt and their grip stayed strong. They knew.

The destabilizer buzzed to life and two plumes of vapor clouded the air. When the smoke cleared, there lay two pearls—one with yellow luster, one with green, both caged in wire—and a single, fully-formed geode.

Jasper stayed longer than she probably should have. Eventually, she gathered up the remaining pearls, the caps, and headed out for the shuttle back home.


	18. Chapter 18

Pearl paced for what seemed like an eternity. She chewed her nails down to nubs and wandered from room to room, feeling helpless. 

So many things could go wrong. What was Jasper _thinking?_

Well, she likely _wasn’t_ thinking.

Stars, she hadn’t been this worried since Steven—

Suddenly, the front door slid open. Pearl turned to see Jasper there in the threshold, clutching a clunky-looking bundle of sheets in her arms. Her broad shoulders nearly brushed the frame as she stepped inside. On her face was an expression of wide-eyed apprehension which crumpled into something like guilt the moment she laid eyes on Pearl.

Pearl wasted no time in rushing over to her. “Oh, Jasper, you—”

“I’m sorry—”

“— _magnificent_ creature!” She didn’t even wait for the door to close before she leapt and wrapped her arms around Jasper’s neck. A badly-aimed kiss landed smack dab on the corner of Jasper’s mouth. “Let me see them.”

Jasper managed to shuffle further into the apartment and let the door close behind her. Her cheeks were flushed and she appeared to be furiously choking back a grin. “Alright, I got ‘em all right here. Let me just…”

They made their way into the storage room and Jasper laid the sheet in the center of the floor. Pearl hovered as she unwrapped the bundle to reveal a nest of pearl gemstones of all colors bound in thick wire mesh. Some were still attached to their chains.

Eager, Pearl knelt next to the bundle and began to sift through the collection. She began to count them. One, two, three, four. There was a blue-tinted one. A peacock one. Two pinks.

“I made sure to get all of them. They should all be there,” Jasper said. She peered over Pearl’s shoulder.

“Look at them. These poor things were probably smuggled out of the Nursery before it was shut down. I heard of it happening, but I never thought there would be so many in one place. After all these years.” Pearl rolled the gems over in her palms. These were her sisters. She didn’t remember them, of course, because it had been too long and there were too many Nursery pearls to ever remember as individuals, but there was no mistaking their origin: common pearls, likely never special enough to be owned by nobility. They weren’t lucky like her, but they came from the same place.

An overwhelming urge to protect these pearls came over her then. It felt so similar to the fire that burned in her chest during the rebellion. Long ago, she might have called it ‘knight’s honor.’  Today, she wasn’t sure what to call it.

Jasper spoke up. “What are we going to do with them?”

Pearl kept her face turned down. She didn’t want to betray her thoughts just yet. It wasn’t as though she was frightened of telling Jasper her plan; Pearl was frightened of many things, but Jasper wasn’t one of them. It simply wasn’t the right moment yet. “First,” she said, “we need to get these chains off them before they reform. These cages are barbaric.”

Jasper didn’t need any more prompting. She knelt beside Pearl and got to work. She picked up a cream-colored pearl and hooked her fingers into the wire mesh cage that surrounded the gem. The sound of whining metal erupted when she pulled the cage asunder as if it were nothing. It didn’t even look like it caused her any trouble. In fact, by the time Pearl bit down on her lower lip to remind herself that now was not the time to flirt, Jasper was already reaching for the next gem.

Stars. It wasn’t fair.

No swooning. Not now. These pearls needed them and they likely didn’t have time for philandering.

Another pearl was released from her cage. Jasper worked quickly but wasn’t very organized about it, so Pearl swooped in and began to sort them into proper piles. One pile for pearls still caged, one pile for freed pearls, and one pile for the broken wire mesh and chains. She was still sorting the piles when she heard Jasper gasp.

“Hmm?” Pearl looked back over her shoulder.

Jasper stared at the gem she’d just freed. It was a little white pearl, so tiny in Jasper’s palms that it was a ridiculous sight at first glance. She held it so gingerly but her hands were shaking.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s…she’s scratched,” Jasper murmured. Her eyes never left that gem. Her pupils were constricted so tight that they almost disappeared. It looked as though a thousand memories raced through her every second.

Shell shock. Pearl had seen it many times before, during and after the War.

Pearl hurried to Jasper’s side, her heart sinking. “Let me see, let me…” She scooped the pearl up into her own hands to examine the damage.

“I was gentle. I tried to be. I didn’t think I hurt her. I didn’t even touch her, I—”

There on the lower rim of the gem was a faint gouge. It went past the outer layer of nacre into the chalky material beneath. A superficial scratch, but a scratch nonetheless. It was not, however, a fresh wound—the edges of the laceration had been worn down by the years passed. No recent encounter had caused this. And so, still holding the damaged gem in her hand, Pearl reached out for Jasper and wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault, Jasper. She’s had that scratch for at least three hundred years, if not more. It wasn’t you. Look.”

The faraway look in Jasper’s eyes remained, even as Pearl tipped the gem into Jasper’s outstretched palms.

“It’s alright. It’s not a deep scratch. She likely learned to cope with it easily. Most wouldn’t even guess she had it.” Pearl pressed herself close until her cheek rested against Jasper’s. She wanted to give her contact, grounding to the moment. “It’s okay,” she said. “You did the right thing. You didn’t hurt any of them. You saved them. Can you hear me, Jasper?”

“Yes,” she said. Her hands closed around the scratched pearl as if to shelter it. A deep inhale rushed into her chest all at once and then shuddered out as the presence returned to her face.

Pearl knew. She understood. And so she pressed a kiss to Jasper’s cheekbone beneath her eye, then another on the skin close to her gem. She cupped her face in both hands as she peppered affection into her in hopes of drawing her back. On her jaw, her forehead, her mouth.

A small noise of surprise whined from Jasper’s throat.

Pearl kissed her on the mouth again, more firmly this time.

This time, Jasper pressed back. The gesture was hesitant, confused. She had never been kissed like this before.

The kiss tasted like a summer evening. There was the taste of heat itself and the sensation of live coals still crackling somewhere beyond Jasper’s mouth. Bonfire smoke and tangy salt. Her lips were big and soft and Pearl felt them dwarf hers as the kiss deepened. Then two arms wrapped around her, cradled her until she felt so very small. Here, held against Jasper’s chest, Pearl did not care which way was up or down. She was just here. With Jasper.

Pearl was just about to grow bold enough to sneak her tongue out to taste Jasper’s mouth when suddenly they came apart. Neither of them pulled away, and yet somehow their lips weren’t touching and they were just gazing at each other in silence. A familiar glow resonated across their faces and yet, the moment Pearl noticed, it faded.

Oh.

A woozy smile crept onto Pearl’s mouth. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Jasper said. She cleared her throat, rubbed at the back of her neck, and let go of Pearl’s waist.

For a moment, Pearl was worried Jasper was upset until she flashed her a sheepish grin. More of a half-grin, really. She got a good look at half a dozen dangerous looking fangs and had to resist the urge to kiss her again.

They turned their attention back to the pearls. With care, Jasper set the scratched gem next to her freed sisters, then went to find the next one.

Pearl sat back on her haunches as she watched. She fingered the hem of her skirt and pressed her lips together as she considered how to approach her next suggestion. It was not an easy one. It wasn’t wise. It could be dangerous.

No. It _wouldn’t_ be dangerous. Jasper was different now than she was before. Pearl was not afraid of Jasper.

_Then what was she afraid of?_

At this point, Pearl was just stalling for time. She opened her mouth to speak several times while Jasper worked on freeing the pearls, and yet nothing would come out. Any way she tried to phrase it was unnatural. How should she even approach the subject? She was lucky that Jasper was too focused to notice her absurd fidgeting.

After a number of false starts, Pearl finally fumbled out, “I know someone who could fix the scratched pearl.”

Jasper stopped. Her eyes flashed to Pearl, yet the rest of her body remained eerily still. Tensed up.

This was the reaction Pearl was afraid of. She wrung her hands. “Heal her, I mean.”

The bristling of the fine hairs on the back of Jasper’s neck was unmistakable. Of course Jasper thought she was talking about Rose. In a way, of course, she was. It was a rude reminder of where they had started this journey together—Pearl as an informant and Jasper trying to drag any information of Rose’s whereabouts out of her. It wasn’t that way anymore and it hadn’t been for a long time, and yet even the slightest implication of Rose had Jasper on edge. She looked uncomfortable and strained. Her hands clenched at her side and she made furious attempts to avoid eye contact.

It was not going to be easy. Pearl knew this, yet they had to do it. At some point, they were bound to meet at this crossroads.

“I trust you,” Pearl said. She shuffled closer to Jasper. “I trust you with what I’m about to tell you. And even though I trust you, I’m still afraid to tell you. Does that make sense?”

The expression on Jasper’s face was pure pain for a long moment. She looked as though she had just been stabbed in the chest and was trying to hold back a noise. Pearl’s instinct was to reach out and help her, but she knew this was something Jasper needed to do on her own. The suffering of birth and war and loss brewed a lifetime of vengeance that rotted a piece of Jasper somewhere down at her core. That sickness fought its way up and Jasper battled it back down. So Pearl gave her space. She gave her peace. And when Jasper finally looked to her with eyes brimming with fear and sincerity and devotion, she said, “I hate Rose. I _hate_ her.” She spat those words with such acid—it was that rotten core boiling up in her—and yet her expression defied her words. “She took everything from me. Everything. I hate her so much. But you…” Her voice softened and so did her eyes. “I care about you more. I can’t touch her, Pearl. Do you see? If I did anything to Rose, it would hurt you. And I can’t. I can’t do that. I’ll protect you, Pearl. I’ll protect you and your secrets. I’ll protect Rose.” Jasper almost whispered that last part. Her shoulders buckled and shook and her fingers curled against the floor. “I’ll protect Rose from the Diamonds for you. Even if you tell me where she is, I wouldn’t tell them a thing.” She paused and looked to the pearl gems laid out on the sheet. “I know you’re going to try and give them to her. She’ll be able to heal them.”

Pearl felt the breath catch in her throat as she reached out. She found Jasper’s hand. “It’s not that simple. Listen to me.”

Jasper went quiet.

For so long, Pearl had kept her cards close to her chest. The secrets she maintained all this time were out of love and fear, and if she revealed them aloud, there was no taking them back. Did she dare? The consequences could be disastrous.

“It’s not Rose I want to send them to,” she began, testing the waters. “It’s Steven.”

Confusion twisted on Jasper’s lips. “The human child? I didn’t know humans possessed such powers.”

“They don’t. But Steven is more than just a human. You see, he has a gem. Rose’s gem. He’s her son.”

Pearl waited for the revelation to sink in, but even after several beats, Jasper was still waiting expectantly, as if Pearl hadn’t finished her explanation. A few more moments went by until it seemed Jasper realized that there was no more to tell. With a squint, Jasper said, “He’s her sun?”

“Her son, yes.”

“How did Rose manage to get an entire sun out of a human?”

“I—what?” Pearl was suddenly also very confused.

“We were just on Earth and there was still only one sun in that solar system. Peridot has it noted in her report, even. Where is Rose hiding this new sun?”

Understanding came over Pearl all at once. She choked on a fit of giggles, snorted, and had to cover her mouth with her hand to stifle the oncoming laughter.

Poor Jasper simply looked offended. She puffed her chest out. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Jasper, I’m sorry. It’s not your fault, I just forgot. You never lived on Earth with humans and I forgot you—” More giggles. She tried so hard to bite them back so as not to make Jasper more upset. She looked so very lost and confused and the frown on her lips become almost comical with how deep it sunk into her features. “It’s just what humans call their offspring sometimes! It confused me at first, too, but I’d been on Earth for so long that I just didn’t give it a second thought. Steven is Rose’s _offspring_. Not sun. Well, but sometimes they call them a ‘son.’ Or a daughter. But offspring will do for now. Or child.” The look on Jasper’s face had Pearl scrambling to finish up her explanation. “Anyway, that’s what Steven is and he has her gem and some of her powers and—and that’s why I need to protect him. And that’s why he can help.”

Silence. Processing. The frown on Jasper’s face did not let up, though her eyes flickered back and forth across the room. Then: “So where is Rose?”

“Gone. I wasn’t lying when I told you she was gone.”

A frustrated crease formed in Jasper’s brow. “Why did she make an offspring? What good did that do her? What was she planning by making an organic child-thing?”

This time, Pearl had no answer. She shook her head and shrugged.

There was something familiar about the way Jasper floundered to understand Rose’s intentions. Long ago, Pearl had asked the same questions with that same demanding tone in expectation of finding concrete answers. Pearl had shouted, she had cried, she had been oh-so-angry at Rose for daring to leave her like she did. Real grief tore her apart for years and, in a way, it was still tearing at her. But the one thing Rose left behind made everything worth it.

Steven.

He was their light. When Rose left them in darkness, he was their beacon. His warmth, his love, his exuberance. The way he trusted everyone to do the right thing…

Pearl sighed. A laugh found its way to her lips.

Still hunched and brooding, Jasper looked over. “What?”

“Steven,” Pearl said. “He would really like you, you know? He’s so much like Rose and yet so different. He would take one look at you and want to be your friend.”

Jasper did not look pleased to hear this. “I don’t want to befriend any offspring of Rose Quartz.”

“I don’t think you’d have a choice. He has a way with people and gems.” She smiled and thought about the way he connected with corrupted gems, humans, and Homeworld gems alike. He could change them sometimes if they let him. When he talked to them with compassion and patience, sometimes he could achieve what Pearl thought was impossible. She grew solemn. “I’m sad you will never get to meet him. And I’ll never get to watch him grow up.”

“You really like this child, don’t you?” Jasper said after some thought.

“Like him? I _love_ him,” Pearl said. “Sometimes I think of him as my own son. I know it’s a silly thought but there are times when I wish he was mine. Mine and Rose’s.”

The concept of a ‘son’ had been absurd thirteen years ago. Gems didn’t have offspring—that was a human thing to do and that was a fact. Even after Steven was born, Pearl struggled with how to relate to him: Rose’s—and, unfortunately, Greg’s—progeny. For some of that time, she tried to liken herself to a mere tutor or guardian. That was easy enough because it allowed herself to distance herself from him. Distance worked at first, but it didn’t work for long because no matter how much Pearl wanted to put space between them, Steven chose to be closer. Steven _chose_ her. Singled her out. And once he came to live in the impromptu home they built around the temple, Pearl found she fit easily into the role she had been trying to avoid. She made Steven’s lunches, did his laundry. When he scraped his knee, Pearl was there with antiseptic cream and a bandaid to patch up his fleshy, fragile body. When he cried over a dead seagull he found on the beach, Pearl took him into her arms, turned his face away from the sight, and explained—probably in poor taste at the time—how organic life did not last very long and that death was normal and expected. She watched him at night, counted his breaths to make sure that he would survive the darkness in that strange, quiescent space humans called ‘sleep.’ Pearl loved him. She didn’t just love the gem embedded in his abdomen, she loved _him_ because he was precious, he was hers to protect, and most incredibly of all, he loved her in return.

The sound of rending metal brought Pearl back to the moment. Jasper retrieved the last pearl from its wire confines and placed her with her sisters. All eighteen of them, now free for the first time in millennia.

“There,” Jasper murmured. She gestured toward the nest. “There they are. So whatever you’re going to do to get them to Ro—Steven,” she corrected herself. “However you plan to do it, they’re yours.”

Pearl crawled closer. She counted the gems again just to double check that, yes, they were all there and they hadn’t forgotten anyone. It was important to keep them together. They belonged together. Yet when Pearl turned to offer a hopeful smile to Jasper, she still looked distraught. The frown was set into the corners of her mouth and her gaze was distant.

Still processing all the new information. It was going to take some time.

“You did a good thing, Jasper,” Pearl reminded. Then she placed her hands over the pearls and let the energy flow through her. A crystalline bubble formed around the gemstones, suspending them within. They floated together in a space that Pearl had long since come to recognize as peaceful.

Jasper jolted. “You’re harvesting them?”

“No,” Pearl said. “I’m sending them home.” And then she did. She lifted the bubble into the air, thought about the Temple’s safe embrace, and watched it disappear.

They both stared at the empty space as the shimmer of the dimensional void dissipated. A warmth settled into Pearl’s chest. She hoped Jasper felt the same thing. Though to be quite honest, Pearl wasn’t sure what Jasper was feeling right now. She was unusually still and quiet, even long after the bubble disappeared. She seemed to be living inside her head, running over and over the things she had just learned.

Hands in her lap, Pearl sat with Jasper a while. With the pearls gone, it somehow felt like they were alone again and she wasn’t quite sure what to say to make it all okay again.

“I miss them,” Pearl said. “I miss Steven, I miss Garnet, I miss Amethyst. I miss them so much.” Her fingers tied together like the knots that raveled up in her gut. “I know you probably hate hearing about it. You probably want to hear about how I’m fine and happy here with you, and about how I don’t think about Earth anymore. You don’t want to hear about how I want to go back. But Earth was my home.”

Like a statue, Jasper sat there next to the tangle of gilded chains, heels braced on the tile floor and knees hitched up. Her hands draped over her thighs as she gazed at nothing in particular. There was something torpid about her demeanor, as if she was lost in a dream. “Earth was supposed to be my home,” she finally said. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it, either.”

It could have been magnificent, Pearl imagined. Earth could have been home to bountiful kindergartens, stationed with gems of all shapes and sizes. From a Homeworld perspective, the colonization of Earth would have meant new life—Jasper was but a sample of the good that fresh soil could create. But it would mean death for the planet itself and everything that lived there, a parasitic infestation that would mangle its host and then take up residence in its corpse. Pearl wondered if Jasper understood that. She wondered if it would even matter if she did.

When she looked up again, Jasper was staring back at her. “You want to go back,” she stated.

Pearl took a breath. “Yes. I don’t belong on Homeworld. You know that.”

Jasper frowned and her shoulders slumped as if a great weight had just come over her. “I don’t know how to make that happen. I don’t know how I could take you back without the Diamonds finding out.” More sullenly, eyes cast downward in shame, she admitted, “I don’t want to give you up.”

A throb of affection bolted through Pearl. A little warm, a little crushing. It prompted her to reach over and put her hand atop Jasper’s. She held on tight and whispered, “You can come _with_ me.”

There was no immediate answer, only resounding silence. The expression on Jasper’s face was closed off, guarded, unreadable. Whatever was going on in her mind, she did not want Pearl to know about it and was doing a very good job at keeping it to herself. Eventually, she turned away and stood up.

Well, it was worth a shot. Pearl could offer freedom, but she could not make Jasper take it. Helpless, she watched as Jasper moved to the window and sequestered herself there. The lights of the Midnight City wreathed her silhouette in color.

It was beautiful. Sometimes, Pearl forgot how beautiful Homeworld could be.

Just when Pearl lost hope that Jasper would open up again to her today, she finally spoke.

“How many pearls can you bubble?” she asked.

A peculiar question. Pearl considered the logistics and could not determine a finite answer, so she just said, “A lot? Why?”

Jasper didn’t respond. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon somewhere beyond the window. She gazed at something, frozen in the moment.

Curiosity got the better of Pearl. She stood up and went to join Jasper at the window. She tried to follow her eyes to determine just what it was that held her attention. The answer was towering. There, rising above the city skyline, were the outstretched hands of the Nursery. Realization came over Pearl like a wave, catching her up in the current. She all but sputtered. “Jasper! But there are so many.”

No response. Just steely determination on Jasper’s face. For the first time in a long time, she looked like a soldier.

Yet Pearl still floundered with this far-too-grand idea. Jasper may have been thinking with her gut, but Pearl refused to think with anything but her head. She added, “And how are we supposed to get into the Nursery? It’s quarantined. The locks on that place are as thick as you are! And don’t you need to get back to Elimia?”

The hardened steel in Jasper’s eyes remained as she turned to Pearl. “Don’t worry about Elimia.”

“Don’t worry about Elimia? I _am_ worried about Elimia—”

“She doesn’t know I’ve regenerated yet,” Jasper murmured. “I haven’t reported in.”

Pearl blinked, taken aback. “You haven’t reported in yet? This whole time since you’ve been back, you’ve just been pretending to still be regenerating?”

The expression of Jasper’s face was rueful. She might have even let one of the corners of her mouth twitch up into a smile. “I wanted to be able to spend time with you before I had to go back.”

Her immediate reaction was to scold bad behavior. It was that knee-jerk desire for order and proper rule-following that ensured Pearl buckled her seatbelt while driving the car or ensuring she measured exactly a quarter cup of detergent for each load of laundry in the washing machine. It was also a reaction Pearl had learned to subvert after many, many years away from Homeworld. Pearl let a tight, knowing smirk spread on her lips. “That sounds like a very rebellious thing to do, Jasper.”

Jasper grinned back at her. “So you’re with me?”

Pearl reached out and took Jasper’s hand in both of her own. She held it close to her, cherished it. “Every step of the way,” she promised.

 

* * *

 

 

Somewhere thirteen million lightyears away, a bubble dotted with eighteen pearls popped into the Burning Room of the Crystal Temple.

Garnet looked up, paused, and lowered her glasses in incredulity.

 

* * *

 

 

Pearl and Jasper tried to spend some time planning their approach to the Nursery, but that didn’t last very long at first. Pearl soon found herself lounging on her back with Jasper’s head tucked between her thighs and a warm, worshipping tongue lapping her right up. It was the middle of the afternoon and she couldn’t even blame Jasper because Pearl was the one who asked for it.

Pillow talk was a little unusual. Instead of whispering sweet nothings at each other, Pearl talked about the injustice of the Nursery. Jasper leaned her head against Pearl’s hip and listened with rapt attention as she mused upon rumors of what happened to Nursery pearls who dared speak or who systematically refused incubation procedures. They were never seen again. There were rumors that pearls could be recycled and their gems crushed up into calcium carbonate powder to be used in future batches of pearls. It was a thought that always haunted her—the idea that her physical form could have been made up of the remnants of her foresisters. It was more likely than not.

She spoke about her years of silence and compliance. Told stories about difficult labors that lasted for days and bad clients that reveled in the sound of her cries.

By the time she grew tired of talking, Jasper’s expression was livid. She could see the magma pooling in the hollows of her eyes and the tension pulling at her mouth.

Strangely enough, that made Pearl smile. “The look on your face,” she said, “it’s the look Rose gave me before she decided we would rebel together.”

Well into the evening, they lounged and planned their approach. The Nursery was large and the pearls within were plentiful and wretched. It was almost too overwhelming for Jasper to conceive of a starting point, so that was when Pearl suggested they do it methodically—floor by floor. Start at the lobby and work their way up. Even so, it would take weeks. Maybe months. Pearl projected a rough estimate of the Nursery floor plan onto the ceiling with her gem and she and Jasper strategized the best approach. It felt like a game of chess, only she and Jasper were not opponents, but allies.

They needed to bring a blanket for comforting pearls who were still intact, a flashlight to illuminate the way. Some way to mark their progress after a floor was cleared, too. Jasper suggested painting on the walls, but Pearl produced a piece of chalk from her gem—typical sidewalk chalk that Steven liked to play with—and suggested that instead.

Pearl drafted up projected timelines and schedules. If they could complete five floors a day, that would be ideal, but Jasper was adamant that three floors a day was more likely.

“Things never go as planned,” she insisted. “We should plan for things to go wrong and then we’ll be right on schedule.”

Who was Pearl to argue with a war general? She drafted a new projected timeline based on Jasper’s expertise.

Everything was planned out. Everything. The smallest details had been accounted for, scenarios had been discussed, and a sense of partnership had blossomed.

Everything _except_ how to get into the Nursery.

Yes, that was the most troubling point.

They stood on the balcony together, studying the Nursery from afar. Pearl leaned into the railing until the breeze caught her hair. The sounds and smells of the city drifted up from below.

“How about the windows?” Jasper said. “Easiest way to get in would be a window.”

Pearl shook her head. “No one has ever been able to break into the Nursery from a window. And trust me, many gems have tried. They’re built to be impenetrable.”

“How did gems get in, then? You said pearls were stolen all the time.”

“Oh, they were. But never because anyone broke into the Nursery. It was always an inside job. Some friend of a friend of a handler had some money and the handler would just ‘forget’ to lock one of the outer doors and they would come in and scoop up as many pearls as they could get in a night. Trying to break in was always futile.”

“An inside job,” Jasper repeated.

“Yes.”

“So we need someone who can get into the Nursery.”

Pearl and Jasper frowned at each other, the realization coming to them simultaneously. Neither of them liked the idea. For a long moment, they both sat there, sucking on sour reality and hating every moment of it.

Pearl spoke up first. “We can’t really trust Peridot, can we?” she said.

Jasper sighed. “We can. We _can_ trust her. That’s the worst part.”

A whine of displeasure escaped Pearl. Peridot had been their secret-keeper thus far. The amount of damning things she knew about Jasper and Pearl was enough to have them both imprisoned several times over should Peridot tattle. But she didn’t and perhaps she wouldn’t.

Skeptical, Pearl folded her arms over her chest. “She _did_ send that video recording to Yellow Diamond. Remember that?”

It seemed Jasper did remember. Her face grew dark and the skin around her gem wrinkled in displeasure. “That was different. I put her in a bad position.”

“And asking her to open the Nursery for us so we can smuggle out hundreds of pearls won’t be putting her in a bad position?”

Jasper had no response to that. Not at first, anyway. It took some chewing on her lower lip and drumming her fingers against the balcony railing to say, “You’re right. If we ask her to do this, then we need something in return. If we give her something to blackmail us with, we need something to blackmail her with, too. We need assurance she won’t go straight to the Diamonds the moment she lets us into the Nursery.”

“What do you suggest?”

A row of fangs flashed behind a smirk. “I say we give her a taste of her own medicine.”

Peridot doled out a lot of medicine on a regular basis. Where to even begin? “Shall we chain her up in stabilization cuffs and leave her there for a week?” was Pearl’s dry suggestion. “Or maybe spend the afternoon insinuating how obsolete and useless she is while she’s trying to get work done?”

“I was thinking we record a video of her having a screaming orgasm and send it to Yellow Diamond if she steps out of line,” Jasper said.

Pearl tipped her head back and laughed. She took it as a jest, of course. At least, she took it as a jest until she realized Jasper wasn’t laughing with her. Jasper was calm, expectant. Pearl’s laugher died quickly. “You’re serious?”

“Peridot enjoys sex. I thought you knew this.”

“Well, yes, but I didn’t think you would honestly suggest…” Pearl trailed off as she considered the implications. Maybe it would work. It was an insane plan, but dealing with a gem like Peridot required a bit of insanity.

Jasper used the railing for support as she leaned down to Pearl’s level to murmur her tactics of collusion as if laying out a run-of-the-mill battle plan. “We’ll tell her we need her help. We’ll tell her that in order to be sure she’s not going to turn us in, we need an insurance policy of our own. We do her a favor, she does us a favor. If she keeps us safe, we’ll keep her safe.”

It almost sounded reasonable. Almost. “Are you sure that would work?”

Jasper shrugged. “Peridot _really_ enjoys sex.”

“I suppose.” Pearl said. “And you keep saying ‘we.’ How much ‘we’ do you really think this is going to take?”

“Yeah, ‘we.’ You know, you and me.”

It was enough to make Pearl sputter. “You really think that Peridot is going to want to have sex with both of us? With _you_ , yes, of course, but with _me?_ ”

Jasper just stared at her like she didn’t understand the question.

She would just have to spell it out for her, then. “Peridot does not like me,” Pearl said. She emphasized every word with a tap of her finger against the railing. “She has had a low opinion of me since we first met and has held a terrible grudge against me ever since! What makes you think she would want me to be any part of whatever it is you two are going to do?”

“I always thought she was just jealous,” Jasper said. “Besides, someone has to handle the recording while I handle Peridot. We’re like a unit now. I don’t want to be with other gems without you.”

It made sense when she put it that way. Practical, even. If past experience served, it took three gems to make a decent recording of illicit activities. It almost felt like karma or a turn of fate sweeping in her favor. Instead of Pearl lying on her back with Jasper over her, she would be the one with the power, the voice, the control.

_Look over here._

_Put your hand on her shoulder._

_Smile._

A little shiver ran down Pearl’s spine as old memories mingled with new possibilities. It wasn’t entirely unwelcome, either. She crossed her arms over her chest. “If we’re going to give Peridot a taste of her own medicine,” she said, “She has to consent to it. She has to know what she’s getting into before we do anything.”

“Of course,” Jasper bowed her head, deferring to Pearl immediately. “I know better. You taught me better.” When she looked up there was the smallest bead of humor glinting in her eyes. “But I don’t think it’s going to be a problem to get her to agree. You know how she is.”

Pearl laughed and shook her head with incredulity. If they pulled this off, if they could do this together, then, well…

The Midnight Sun set over the distant horizon. They stood side-by-side as they watched the rays scatter and dim between the jagged skyline as if they had always been here like this, just the two of them. Two gems against the universe. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, in fact. Same universe, same Homeworld, different gem at her side.

The memories of rebellion were suddenly so much more tangible now. It felt almost as if it had never left.

The last rays of light puttered out behind the silhouette of White Diamond’s temple to the east. Pearl turned to Jasper and tugged at her hand. “Come on. We have work to do.”

“Work?” Though Jasper appeared confused, she followed along anyway.

“Yes,” Pearl said. “If we are going to do something crazy like liberate the entire Nursery, I am done wearing this outfit and this collar. I want it off.” Still tugging Jasper along behind her—well, guiding her, as Pearl wouldn’t have been able to do a thing to budge Jasper if she decided she didn’t want to move—she took them inside, away from the prying eyes of Homeworld. Away from the balcony, beyond the sliver of illumination cast across the hall, and across the darkened floors where the light didn’t reach.

“Uh?” Jasper said.

She marched them over to Jasper’s office. Adrenaline felt good. They had a plan, they had the means, they had the partnership. What would they be able to achieve together? Pearl didn’t know, but she wanted to find out.

The leather duffle bag slumped in the corner. Pearl had rummaged around in Jasper’s things enough times to know that this was exactly where she would find what she was looking for. She let go of Jasper’s hand and began to search in earnest, brushing aside a crumpled up strip of used tape, a fistful of broken styluses, a wadded up dusty sheet that smelled of musk—

“What are you doing?” Jasper peered over her shoulder.

—two crystal batteries that looked half-empty, a ball of twine that had been unraveled and rewound several times—

Then she found it. Cold and heavy in her fist. Pearl stood up and extended the destabilizer towards Jasper to take.

Jasper looked at the destabilizer, then back up at her. She did not make a move to accept it. She may have even taken half a step back.

“I want this collar off,” Pearl said again. “I want out of this stupid outfit. Destabilize me and I can come back with something much more practical. We’re going to take on the Nursery together and I don’t want to be wearing this—this silly dress with these silly boots that I can’t even bend over in. Do this for me.”

“Pearl,” Jasper said. A little whine hitched in the back of her throat. She took a full step back, like the destabilizer was going to reach out and bite her.

“This is the beginning of something. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I can feel it. When we do this, I want to be _me_ by your side. I don’t want to play dress-up in some desperate attempt to save my life anymore, I want to be proud.” She offered up the destabilizer again. “I am the Rebel Pearl. That’s what I’ve always been.”

Jasper’s expression was difficult to read. She stood with her hands at her sides and her chin tilted down. The powerlessness she exuded was strange.

Pearl tried one more time. “Please,” she said. “You freed all those other pearls. Now free me.”

That was finally enough. Jasper took the destabilizer and choked up on the hilt until it buzzed with resonance energy. Yet she held it away from them, reluctant to let Pearl get anywhere near it. Her forehead was buckled up and she looked remarkably pitiful for such a proud, regal gem.

“When I come back, it’s going to be you and me against everyone,” Pearl said in an effort to soothe.

“ _When_ you come back,” Jasper repeated. She already looked to be in mourning. “Don’t take too long to come back.”

“What, are you going to miss me?”

Jasper frowned. “Yes.”

Pearl couldn’t help but smile until the endearment shone in the hue of her cheeks. How could Jasper be so very perfect? So much power and strength and vulnerability all in one glorious package that pouted when she had to say goodbye for a few days and snored all night long and broke almost everything she touched that wasn’t quartz-proofed first. She curled a finger to beckon Jasper closer. “Come here.”

Obedient—because Jasper was also so, so obedient—Jasper leaned down and Pearl wasted no time in stealing herself a kiss. She caught Jasper’s lips against her own and delighted in the confidence of it; Jasper kissed her with stalwart conviction. It was such a nice kiss that she felt rather bad about ruining it. Pearl blindly reached out toward the buzzing sound of the destabilizer, fumbling in the air to get a grip on it. For a second, she worried that perhaps Jasper’s long arms were holding it out of her reach. Then, she found it. Her fingertips vibrated as she passed them into the heavy electrical field beyond the prongs.

Everything went dark.

Tucked deep inside the safety of her gemstone, Pearl mused over the thrill of the kiss that still lingered on her lips and smiled. What a wonderful thing to remake herself for.

 


	19. Chapter 19

Regeneration felt like an embrace. It felt like a burst of warmth that served to remind her of the stark cold she’d become numb to after so long. It came as a surprise, this realization that something had been missing for so long and she’d only just grown used to the absence. But now it was back and it felt wonderful.

Pearl looked down at herself and smiled.

A simple pair of flats, neat leggings, and a cozy knitted sweater with three diamonds lined up across the front. The sleeves were too big and the color was an off-putting mustard, but it was perfect because it reminded her of one chilly New Year’s evening with Steven. She wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes.

She was proud of herself. Steven would be proud of her, too, if he could see her now.

The sound of heavy footfalls grew louder as Jasper came barreling around the corner, a grin on her face. “Pearl! You’re back.”

And, of course, Pearl went to her with both arms outstretched. No hesitation. “Yes, I am. And—oh, you’re sweaty!” She patted at the sides of Jasper’s face.

“Yeah, I’ve been training. Waiting for you to get back.”

What a perfect thing for which to regenerate: Jasper smiling wide with loose strands of hair sticking to her damp forehead, smelling of musk and heat. Pearl was a lucky, lucky gem. She threw her arms around Jasper’s neck, stood on her tiptoes, and stole a kiss. When she pulled away, she could have sworn there were stars in Jasper’s eyes.

“You look good,” Jasper said. “It makes you look small. Did you shrink?” She plucked at the loose knit, inspecting just how roomy the garment was.

To be fair, it was a little large. If she remembered correctly, the origin of the sweater was a hand-me-down from Greg. Pearl pushed the sleeves up on her forearms to keep them from flopping over her hands. “Yes, well, I like it this way. It’s a human thing, so you wouldn’t understand it.”

That seemed to satisfy Jasper. She grunted her approval and turned toward the door. “Alright, then, let’s get going. Now that you’re back, we can go to the Nursery. I’m tired of waiting.”

The call to action was almost enough to make Pearl forget their order of operations. Perhaps time moved faster when she was regenerating and their well-crafted plan felt more fresh in her memory, or perhaps Jasper was just choosing to forget. “Did you already speak to Peridot?”

The way Jasper paused and scrunched her face made Pearl suspect the latter.

“Uh, no,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Well?” Pearl put her hands on her hips. “How do you think we’re going to get into the Nursery without her?”

Jasper offered some mumbles.

“What was that, now?”

The expression Jasper gave her next was odd. Reluctant and uncomfortable. “You sure you’re okay if I fuck her?” she finally said.

There it was. So that’s what Jasper was avoiding. From the way the corners of her mouth tightened into a frown, it was clear she had been thinking about this quite a bit during Pearl’s absence. That was one of the consequences of regeneration—things could snowball and tumble into bigger and bigger issues simply because they were not addressed. Now they needed to take the time to do it. Before they went anywhere, they needed to talk. Pearl sat down on the corner of Jasper’s bed and patted the mattress beside her. She beckoned. “Come here.”

As Jasper waffled, Pearl could see the reflection of Amethyst somewhere in her. This was a quartz soldier thing. They didn’t like to talk. They would do it, but they would act like it was torture all the while. It was uncharacteristically dramatic of them, really. Jasper accentuated this theater by sitting down beside Pearl with an extra heavy flop that nearly bounced her right off the edge of the bed.

Oh, the melodrama.

Pearl sidled close. She traced the line of Jasper’s jaw with her fingers and drank in those gorgeous golden eyes. “Jasper, you know that having other lovers doesn’t make me jealous, right?”

Jasper frowned. “I didn’t know that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being with other gems.”

“But I want to be with _you_ ,” she said. Her frown deepened.

“Does that mean you don’t want to be with Peridot?”

Jasper thought about it for a moment, consternation furrowing her brow. For once, she chose her words carefully. “I like being with her. We’ve been through a lot together. The sex is good. But she’s not you. She’s different.”

“That’s okay,” Pearl said. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright with doing this. You should be as alright with it as she is and I should be as alright with it as both of you are. Right?”

“Right.” Finally, some confidence in Jasper’s voice.

“Right.” Pearl smiled at her, satisfied that Jasper understood now. There didn’t need to be any guilt or secrets between them. All it took sometimes was just a little conversation to clear the air, to keep them on the same page. And yet, Pearl felt a pang of shame at words gone unsaid on her end. There hadn’t really been an appropriate time to say them before, but now was as good a time as any. Jasper deserved to hear them. With only a slight waver in her voice, Pearl confessed. “You know that I still love Garnet and Amethyst, don’t you?”

Jasper thought about that. She nodded. “Yeah, I think I knew that,” she said. A wry chuckle shook her chest, but it died quickly. Her somber mood engulfed any attempt at levity as she said, “They wouldn’t be alright with me being with you.”

Pearl had no immediate rebuttal. Jasper was right. Garnet and Amethyst likely wouldn’t want Jasper laying another finger on her after what they’d seen. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if they were prepared to kill her on sight if they ever came to Homeworld. Not vaporize, but shatter. It was a distressing thought, so Pearl pushed it away. “Well, they don’t know what I know. If they knew you, they would feel differently. Besides,” Pearl stood up from the bed, turned, and extended her hand to Jasper. “It’s my choice in the end. They respect my choices.”

Jasper accepted her hand and let Pearl help her up. They stood there with hands clasped for perhaps longer than was necessary, reveling in the mutual grip between them. It felt like a handshake between warriors, a lover’s touch, and a promise all at once. Strange how being with Jasper blurred those lines beyond recognition. Pearl found she enjoyed it.

“Do you want me to call her? Bring her over?” Jasper asked.

“We should call her,” Pearl said, “But we should be the ones to go to her. We’re about to proposition something rather unorthodox and I want to make sure she feels safe. If she’s in her own environment, I think she’ll feel more secure. I’m afraid she’d feel cornered if we brought her here.”

With an approving nod, Jasper reached for her communicator. “That’s why you’re the brains of this operation. You think of everything.”

“I just have more experience,” Pearl said. It was difficult to resist the temptation to bop Jasper on her gem with a finger. Stars, she was enamored. She tucked her hands into her sleeves and nibbled on her lower lip instead so she wouldn’t be tempted to make a fool of herself as Jasper connected to Peridot’s communication line.

She picked up quite readily. “Yes?”

“Peridot, we need you for something. We wanna come over.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Everyone needs me for something,” Peridot’s voice projected through digital space, as brassy as ever. “I’m guessing you want to bring your pearl with you? You keep saying ‘we.’”

“Yes, Pearl’s coming, too,” Jasper said.

“Oh, I can’t wait.” Sarcasm dripped from every syllable like venom from a cobra’s mouth. The line cut out.

Jasper looked to Pearl.

Pearl looked to Jasper.

“Are you still sure?” Jasper asked.

“Are _you_ sure?” Pearl replied.

“Unless you know any secret ways to get into the Nursery, then this is all I got.”

In the end, they decided that there was no other option. Peridot was their key. Their petulant, insolent, utterly uncooperative key.

 

* * *

 

The shuttle ride was much more relaxing with Jasper hunched next to her. Pearl received far fewer unwelcome glances and touches than before. In fact, she may as well have been a ghost to the assortment of gems, big and small, who crowded the shuttle. The mere fact that Jasper had her hand on the small of Pearl’s waist to guide her as they entered was enough to dissuade any interest.

 _They think she owns me,_ Pearl thought.

In a way, they were right. In a way, they were also very wrong.

Pearl let one hand creep onto Jasper’s thigh. She felt the muscle beneath the flesh shiver and tense as she pressed her nails in with a delicate intent and dragged them higher. In a language only lovers understood, she traced a pattern that meant ‘mine’ and she traced a pattern that meant ‘yours.’

Jasper fidgeted. Her breath grew warm and her gaze distant as she tried to remain stoic under the watchful eyes of her peers. Even when Pearl pulled her hand away—because she did not want to overstay her welcome—Jasper only pressed closer for more, so she went right back to plucking those strings as casually as ever.

By the time they reached sector 5 and stepped onto the platform, the expression on Jasper’s face was moony. Pearl couldn’t help but lean into her and hum, “I got you in the mood, did I?”

Hushed, Jasper muttered back, “I’m wet.” She sounded surprised, even dismayed at the very idea, as if she didn’t think a clever hand on her thigh should have been able to do such a thing.

Pearl just simpered. “I think Peridot will like that.”

Their furtive conversation ended abruptly when a crowd of gems from another shuttle swarmed and whisked them along the promenade as if being scooped up in a river’s current. They simply had to follow along, lest they get scowled at by an impatient moonstone or a zircon for walking too slow.

They finally managed to break off from the pack once they reached Peridot’s building and made their way up on a very full elevator. Jasper got a few side-eyes for taking up a good third of the space.

Jasper pressed the buzzer outside the door to let Peridot know they had arrived and was immediately answered with a curt, “It’s open.”

Inside, they were greeted with the sight of Peridot crouched over a workbench in the only well-lit corner of the cramped apartment. She looked to them. Her expression was obscured by a pair of ridiculous goggles that looked far too heavy for her face and were ready to slip down her nose at any second. The only thing they could read on her face was the tightened, downturned line of her mouth, which did not bode well for the mood. She turned back to her workbench. Sparks scattered across the table as she went back to welding. “And what can I do for you today?” she said.

“Straight to the point, huh?” Jasper’s chuckle was forced. Uncomfortable. She wandered over to Peridot’s workbench and started to poke around at some of her equipment, as if searching for some casual middle ground. Nuts and bolts, a bundle of wires, crumpled piles of insulation material.

“Don’t touch that.” Peridot deadpanned. “Don’t touch that, either. Don’t, Jasper. _Jasper_.”

With a grunt, Jasper finally resolved to keep her hands to herself and tucked them to her sides. They began to curl into fists.

Not even a full minute and already things were not going as Pearl had hoped. These two always riled themselves up in one way or another, and this was _not_ the preferred way. They ought to be clawing at each other’s clothes, not their throats.

Pearl tried a more articulate approach. “We did come here for a reason, Peridot. We need your help.”

Peridot did not look up from her welding. “I extrapolated that. And yet the data you have given about how my expertise can help you has been poor.”

Another exchange of glances between Pearl and Jasper. Were they really going to do this? Take the plunge?

A nod from Jasper was the encouragement Pearl needed. She steepled her fingers and pressed on. “We need your help to do something dangerous and not quite legal. If what we are doing gets discovered by anyone, we could end up in a lot of trouble. But we need your help. We can’t do it without you. And if you’re willing to join us in this endeavor and keep our actions a secret, we are willing to give you something in return. An insurance policy for us, and a gift for you at the same time.”

This had Peridot’s full attention. The welding tool rested on the bench, idle. Her goggles were flipped up onto her forehead so she could stare at Jasper with unobstructed incredulity. “What,” she squinted, “are you up to? I’m almost afraid to ask.”

Pearl was about to speak up again, say something along the lines of how they ought to come to some mutual agreements and terms before any more information was discussed. Before she could do any of that, Jasper took a knee. Right there beside the workbench, she hunkered down so that she could be at eye level with Peridot when she spoke to her. No swagger or rivalry. Sincerity clung to the stoop of her silhouette and open palms. “Peridot. Can we trust you?” she asked. “Can _I_ trust you?”

Sometimes Pearl forgot that Jasper and Peridot had a history together. Sometimes she forgot what it looked like when they weren’t trying to rip each other open. It looked quite a lot like trust, like a little oasis of peace existed somewhere beneath the turbulent sky of their whirlwind affair. It felt like, somehow, all of the bluster and petulant arguing that dominated almost every interaction was only pretense and they both knew it. When it mattered, when it _really_ mattered, they opened to one another, a parting in the clouds.

“Yes,” Peridot said at length. “But I’m still afraid to ask.”

“It’s nothing you shouldn’t be allowed to do. We just want you to open the Nursery for us.”

“The Nursery? Why would you want to go back there?” Her nose wrinkled in disgust, body recoiling from Jasper. “Do you even remember how—how awful that place was?”

“We know exactly how awful it is,” Pearl cut in. “That’s why we’re going there.”

Jasper puffed up. She was proud when she announced, “Yeah. We’re going in and getting all those pearls out. We can send them somewhere else so they don’t have to stay trapped in there anymore. All you have to do is let us inside.”

It took a moment for comprehension to sink in.

“Are you _cracked?_ ” Peridot’s voice splintered, raw and incredulous. Her lips curled back to reveal pinprick fangs Pearl wasn’t sure she had ever seen before. “You want to do what?”

“We want to get all the pearls out of the—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time,” Peridot’s disembodied fingers clutched at the air as if trying to grasp onto some thread of understanding. “But why? You’re—you’re a soldier. Shouldn’t you be out fighting something? Throwing your weight around? I mean, they’re _pearls_. No offense, Pearl.” The sneer in her voice made certain that she did, indeed, mean offense.

Jasper only shook her head. “You don’t understand and I don’t expect you to. All I want you to do is open the Nursery for us when we need to get in. You don’t have to do anything else. In fact, the less you know, the better. If the Diamonds find out, you’ll want to know as little as possible about what we’re going to do.”

“ _If_ the Diamonds find out,” Pearl crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Peridot. Blue, blue eyes on green. “And they won’t find out, because you won’t tell anyone. We are going to make sure of that.”

“That sounds like a threat,” Peridot murmured. Tiny fangs flashed in the dim light.

Pearl sidled up to Jasper until she was pressed up against her hip. Cozy, familiar. They made an impressive sight together—slim and graceful beside broad and stalwart. “It doesn’t have to be a threat. Think of it as an offering.”

Peridot’s expression was dark. “I am not sure I follow your reasoning.”

“If you do this,” Jasper announced with an uncharacteristic amount of patience, “If you do this, we’ll fuck you.”

“Fuck me?”

“Like you’ve never been fucked before,” Pearl added. She flourished a hand for a little added whimsy.

“Like I’ve— _what?!_ ” Peridot’s menacing act failed when her words evaporated into squeaks and her cheeks went a bright green. “What does that have to do with—I mean, I’m not saying _no_ , but your logic still evades all rational thought.”

Behind her hand, Pearl hid a chuckle. It was not often she got to see Peridot bumbling around outside of her element. In a way, it felt like a very well-deserved dose of power. And, well, power really was the currency in this exchange, wasn’t it? “We’re also going to do something you’re rather familiar with. We’re going to record it all so if you ever turn against us and tell Yellow Diamond what we’re doing, we have an insurance policy for ourselves. It’s not all altruism.”

“She may have us crushed for going to the Nursery,” Jasper said, “But a recording of you being bent over and begging for me will be enough to strip of your rank at the very least. So don’t cross us.”

For a moment, Peridot just stood there agape, speechless. A stream of emotions rushed unchecked across her face—shock, indignation, excitement—until she came to linger on something that resembled genuine hurt. She wheedled, “Jasper, you know I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t tell. I’ve already stuck my neck out for you and your pearl half a dozen times and you know I’ll do it again. So go ahead, record it. I’ll probably just keep it in my encrypted files and watch it when I get bored.” Her laugh was a wry one. “I bet it’ll be hot.”

Jasper’s shoulders unbuckled, her hands unclenched. “Right,” she sighed. “Yeah, I know. Just gotta make sure.”

“Right,” Peridot said. She twirled a lock of hair around a mechanical digit, shifted her weight. She seemed uncomfortable with the earnestness between them and didn’t waste much time in launching herself into another huff. “Well, if I’m going to get all caught up in this Nursery business for you clods, I might as well get something out of it,” she said. Her joints whirred as she sprang into action. “Where are we doing this? Here? Now? Are we doing this now? Oo, wait—” She clomped over to the bed in the corner and shoved a pile of metal scrap to the ground. It landed with an ugly clunk directly into another pile of metal scrap. With pride, she presented her bed with a grand gesture and a “ _Ta-d_ —wait, hold on.” Some cursing and muttering as Peridot stepped over the mound of junk obstructing her path. She finally flopped herself down onto the mattress with graceless excellence and posed there with her head balanced precariously on one limb enhancer. Pearl was sure she’d seen a similar silhouette from a lady on the cover of one of Greg’s ‘secret’ books, grin and all. “Ta-da,” Peridot declared. She looked to the both of them expectantly. “Now is when you’re supposed to praise me for being an exceptional host, preferably by joining me on my very welcoming and clearly-big-enough-for-two bed.”

Jasper looked at Pearl, then back at Peridot. “But not big enough for three?” she ventured.

A skeptical line formed in Peridot’s brow. “Um. I’m having sex with you, though, Jasper. This isn’t some weird thing where I have to let Pearl flop around on top of me, right? Because I highly doubt pearls are very effective in bed.”

“Hey,” Jasper said, “Pearl’s really good in bed. Besides, I want her to be here. I don’t want to do it without her. Unless that bothers you. If it does, we don’t have to do it at all. Right, Pearl?”

Pride radiated like heat from her chest as Pearl patted Jasper on the arm. Oh, how her dear soldier had come to learn so much. “Right.”

Peridot thought about it. Finally, she shrugged and said, “Fine. She can stay.”

Even then, Jasper insisted, “Are you sure?”

With a derisive snort, Peridot rolled onto her stomach and propped her chin on her fingers. “I’m sure. There’s nothing of Pearl I haven’t already seen anyway. I’ve put my fingers in places that would haunt a lesser gem. I manually dilated her cervix to ten centimeters with nothing more than an archaic instruction manual and my own superior intellect. She _splashed me in the face with her labor-goop_.”

“Oh, did it really get you in the face?” Pearl chimed. “Wonderful! That’s what I was aiming for and I thought I’d missed.”

The angry noises that followed almost made up for having to remember every one of Peridot’s chagrined, disgusted expression as she blundered around in Pearl’s nethers. As if labor wasn’t unpleasant enough already.

“See? You already know each other so well,” was Jasper’s attempt to lighten the mood.

She received two matching glares for her trouble.

Having long-forgotten her attempt at a seductive pose, Peridot sprawled on the mattress and idly rubbed at her eye. “So should I call Lapis to come join us?”

Pearl and Jasper answered with melodic dissonance: “Sure” and “No.”

Pearl frowned at Jasper with all her might.

Without a fuss, Jasper resigned. “I mean, ‘no.’ Not this time,” she said, trying to act casual about it. “What’s, uh, what’s Lapis up to these days anyway?”

Peridot rolled and slumped her way across the bed with a groan. “I don’t know. Lapis just does what she wants. I try not to get in her way when she’s out doing something. It’s probably important. I mean, it’s not like I have to know every little thing she’s doing at every moment. We’re not like _some_ gems who are always together and can’t even be apart for, like, five minutes without clawing at each other like they’re a cruddy _fusion_ or something.” She rolled her eyes. There was something very accusatory in the way she came to pointedly stare at Pearl, but the moment didn’t last very long, for soon Peridot was back to rolling around in the throes of boredom. Her wheedling grew more insistent than ever before. “So we’re going to do this now, right?”

“Do you want to?” Jasper shrugged.

Like a rocket, Peridot popped back up onto her hands and knees. “Yes!” She wriggled in a way that reminded Pearl of a cat ready to pounce. It was, admittedly, a little endearing.

She wasn’t going to think about that. Peridot was _not_ endearing. She was a pain in the neck.

Pearl’s gem glowed as she summoned her rickety communicator. Her fingers traced around the familiar seams of tape and cobbled metal. “Very well,” she hummed. “You two go canoodle while I get the recording set up.”

Just as she turned toward the workbench to find something she could use as a makeshift stand for her communicator, she felt a poke at her arm. When she turned, she found herself face-to-face with Jasper. She had a warm expression and, when she leaned down to Pearl for a kiss, even warmer lips. The kiss was brief, but comforting. It felt like an oath. Or maybe an inquiry: _is this going to be okay?_ When Jasper pulled away and stepped toward the bed, she was still gazing at Pearl with bright, intent eyes.

Pearl smiled at her. “Go on,” she said.

Jasper did.

Peridot was waiting for her. As soon as Jasper came within arm’s length, she wrapped her up in her own mechanical embrace. Her joints clicked and echoed as she pulled her closer in a way that was demanding, insistent, a kraken’s deathly grip around Jasper’s middle. A low, raspy chuckle affirmed that Peridot had gotten exactly what she wanted. She reeled Jasper in.

Some triumphant joining of their bodies happened, but Pearl did not see it. She focused on getting the communicator tilted at just the right angle and fussed over how to keep it propped up against a nest of clutter on the edge of Peridot’s workbench. It wanted to tilt to the left, so Pearl found a loose rubber stopper and wedged that behind it, but then it began tilting to the right instead.

‘Tidy’ was one thing Peridot was not. Pearl wondered if she could get away with spending her time here organizing the mess instead of dealing with camerawork, but they had a Nursery to liberate. She had to focus.

“Peridot,” she called over her shoulder. “May I use your blowtorch?”

Peridot’s face and already rumpled hair popped up from behind the bulk of Jasper’s arm. “Uh, why?” she called back.

“I want to construct a stand for the communicator,” Pearl explained. “I don’t want to have to hold it the whole time.”

“Ugh, fine. But don’t cry when you burn yourself.”

Jasper murmured something that sounded like “Be nice.” She swatted down against Peridot’s bare ass with a sharp, resonating smack. She earned a gasp and a devious snicker in reply.

“Do that again,” Peridot said.

With a poorly concealed sigh, Pearl picked up the blowtorch and a welding helmet and got to work. A small, simple stand to prop the communicator up should be easy enough to build, so long as she hadn’t lost her touch.

Yes, this was all she needed to make. No need to overcomplicate it. No need to draw it out or prove herself. That wasn’t what they were here for. So she flipped the visor down, lit up the blowtorch, and got to work.

Molten metal had a sensual way of churning together. It lapped at itself, over and over, sealing together in an impossible way. Pearl sometimes thought of fusion like this—a continuum, a bond. Sparks fell like beads of sun across the table as she worked on her frame.

Pearl should not have been surprised that Peridot had some strange desires. Jasper had told her as much. And yet when she glanced over to see Jasper pinning Peridot to the bed by the throat with one hand and striking her across the face with the other, it was jarring. It looked violent from the outside. It even sounded violent. Yet when she looked closely, past the hand boorishly smothering Peridot’s throat and jaw, past the thumb invading her mouth, Pearl could see the pleased expression on her flushed face. When she wasn’t grinning around Jasper’s finger, she was crooning her encouraging little noises. Her arms lay at her sides, completely accepting, completely trusting, and the way Jasper held onto her around her throat and jaw with her thumb shoved well past Peridot’s tongue was not there just for fun. She used it to brace Peridot’s head, to keep it from being battered and tossed from side to side when she struck down. That loud, popping sound that accompanied each smack across her face that sounded so violent was mostly just resonance from the hollows of Peridot’s cheeks. The strength with which Jasper struck was not muscle or force, but the idle pull of gravity. Like a kitten batting at a ball of yarn.

Jasper adjusted her grip to cup Peridot’s chin instead. “Feeling dizzy yet?” she asked.

“Yeah and s’good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah.” An indolent smile spread across Peridot’s face. “Bet your pearl never lets you do this, huh? Bet she won’t take it in the ass, either. But I will. What do you think of that?”

Pearl could sense Jasper twisting around to see if Pearl had heard that comment over the roar of the blowtorch. A part of her wanted to look up from her work or at least make some indication that, yes, she knew what was being said. She knew and she wasn’t amused, but she wasn’t about to run crying from the room over it. That took courage, however, and so instead Pearl just pretended she didn’t hear.

Jasper hissed at Peridot with an insistent, “Be nice. She’s letting you do this.”

A derisive snort was her answer.

Peridot was never going to see her as an equal and it was fine because Pearl didn’t need her approval. She had Jasper’s trust and affection and that was enough. More than enough, really. And of course, Pearl was so much more experienced and skilled than Peridot anyway. Her lifetime of experiences both on Homeworld and as a rebel living on another planet surely surpassed any short-sighted book-learning Peridot had done in this cloistered life of hers. She probably wasn’t even a millennium old yet, and yet there she was, making bold claims about Pearl that she had no way of knowing anything about. No experience in bed? Petty. Wouldn’t take it in the ass? Churlish. Would be silly enough to burn herself on a blowtorch? It was enough to make Pearl’s hands quake with fury.

Pearl promptly burned herself with the blowtorch.

Stifling a cry, Pearl popped the singed finger into her mouth and internally cursed up a storm.

If Garnet was here, she would say that Pearl was letting others get to her. She shouldn’t let anyone else define her self-worth. She was letting Peridot get the better of her.

Yes, and she was right. She was always right. What _would_ Garnet do?

Garnet wouldn’t have allowed herself to get worked up like this. She would have been confident in herself regardless of what some other gem thought of her.

What would Amethyst have said?

_Yo, go fuck homegirl up and show her who’s boss, P!_

Never mind. Amethyst didn’t always have the best ideas.

After a few final touches to the communicator stand, she propped it up where it belonged and delighted in how upright and even it was. It was a sturdy—albeit small—reminder that she had not lost her touch after all. Pearl took a step back from the communicator and pressed the ‘record’ button. “Alright, we’re ready.”

Even smothered beneath Jasper’s body, Peridot didn’t miss a beat. “Finally. It took you long enough.”

The color red flashed behind Pearl’s eyes.

Never mind. Garnet be damned, Pearl was not about to take this lying down.

No, she didn’t need Peridot’s approval. But stars, the constant belittling was _annoying_. Pearl did not escape from the Nursery, escape from Homeworld, help lead a rebellion, slaughter a Diamond, escape the Nursery a second time, and earn her freedom _again_ for some Era 2 peridot with a chip on her shoulder to look down upon her.

No. It was going to end now. Tonight. And Pearl knew just how she was going to do it.

“Jasper, will you shut her up?” Pearl said. And oh, how that felt _good_ to say.

She was met with shocked expressions. A breath of silence. And then, with the most smug, satisfied smirk she’d ever seen—one that would have been supremely punchable had they been in a different situation—Jasper turned back to Peridot and said, “You made Pearl mad.”

Still pinned awkwardly to the edge of the bed, Peridot gurgled around Jasper’s fingers in confusion. “What does that mean?”

There wasn’t time for an answer. Pearl bumped Jasper out of the way with one bony hip to take her place between Peridot’s spread thighs. It was a powerful position, yet Pearl did not touch Peridot. Not her leg, not her knee, not her throat. It seemed her presence alone was enough to command Peridot to remain on her back, surrendered as Pearl leaned over her. “You think I’m less than you, don’t you?” she said. “But you don’t know anything about me or what I’ve done or who I am. You’ve only seen what I want you to see. Well now I’m going to show you what a pearl is made of, so pay attention. Maybe I’ll manage to get something through that insufferably dense metal skull of yours.” With that, Pearl straightened. She regarded Peridot with softer eyes and considerably more patience as she reminded, “And if you ever want me to stop, you just say so. And I will. Because I’m not like you.”

“Uh?” Peridot was staggered. Behind her visor, her eyes were wide.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No?” she said. “And my skull is perfectly normal, I’ll have you know—"

Pearl cut her off before she could begin her indignant rant. She needed an answer. “Do you want me to keep going?”

Peridot squinted. The gears in her head chugged along in that mysterious way of hers until she apparently came to a decision. She sounded skeptical, yet agreeable as she said, “I’m intrigued. The experiment can continue.”

Perfect. Pearl put her hands behind her back, simpered, and stepped away. “Jasper, I would be delighted if you would show Peridot what your mouth can do. Have you shown her that new thing I taught you? The tongue thing? No? Well, you’ll have to demonstrate.”

Without another word, Jasper took her place between Peridot’s thighs once more. Dropped to one knee, then two. She grabbed her by the hips and gave her a single, demonstrative tug toward the edge of the mattress with all the ease of a gem who knew that this was where she belonged. “Hey,” she said with her smile still stretched across a row of fangs.

“Hi,” Peridot said back.

Jasper descended.

Golden silence reigned for a moment. Then Peridot gasped. Her breath caught in her throat. A sigh, a groan, a wet-sounding kiss.

Pearl did not even need to watch to know that things were coming along nicely. She focused on the leftovers scattered about on the workbench to see if anything struck her fancy. Bolts and aglets rolled beneath her fingertips as she picked through the clutter for more desirable items: silicone, switches, batteries, cables, and, oh, was this a voltage calibrator? Pearl began to feel inspired. Peridot may have had a knack for craft, but Pearl had learned a thing or two herself.

Over her shoulder, Pearl chimed, “How are you two doing over there?”

“T-this is agreeable,” Peridot called back. Her voice wavered drunkenly.

“Mmhmm.”

Just then, Pearl found an electrode tube hidden beneath an upturned slab of fiberglass and it was possibly the best find of the day. It felt like striking treasure. She trilled in excitement and began to assemble all those little random pieces into what she was sure Peridot would consider a work of art. And if she didn’t, well, then Pearl would just have to persuade her otherwise.

Heavy breaths rattled from Peridot’s chest as she surrendered to Jasper’s tongue, her thighs spread with lewd abandon. Her head tossed from one side to the other as if she couldn’t stay still. The blush of her cheeks matched the blush of her lips and the blush of her lips matched the blush of her nipples, a pretty jade color that could very well be toxic, yet Jasper feasted upon it anyway. Once upon a time, Pearl might have imagined that Peridot tasted acrid and unyielding, just as she was wont to be every time she opened her mouth, but from the way Jasper slurped, she could only imagine that tasting Peridot was like swallowing cyanide; sweet, deceiving, deadly.

“Jasper,” Peridot sighed, “I just want you in me.”

Jasper’s response was simply to grab Peridot’s thighs and push them up, up until her knees all but pressed to her shoulders to bend her in half. Her tongue worked in long, deliberate strokes, invading places that made Peridot curse under her breath.

Pearl inspected the finishing touches on her new toy. The seams were even and tight. She turned it on and let beautiful blue and violet webs spread across her vision.

Perfect. Simply perfect.

She turned it off, tucked it beneath the hem of her sweater and turned to the pair on the bed. “Jasper,” she said, “are you going to take her? She asked you so nicely.”

Something instinctual triggered in Jasper as, head still buried betwixt Peridot’s thighs, she growled and crouched over her to shield her, guard her from anyone that might attempt to take her away. A pair of glinting eyes flashed somewhere behind a mane of wild hair. Yet, when she saw it was only Pearl coming up behind her, she eased up.  

No harm, no folly.

Pearl ran a soothing hand through Jasper’s hair as she came to stand beside her. “Hmm? If you’re going to take her, you need to be ready. Are you ready?” She stroked down the back of Jasper’s head, parting thick hair to find her shoulder blades, hunched, predatory. She followed the contour of the muscles in her back along her spine as they shivered and pulled at her vertebrae, then dipped between the valley of her ass. Her fingers soaked in the warmth as she shimmied between Jasper’s legs to find what she was looking for under the cloth of her uniform. She knew it so well and so she palmed it without hesitation.

Jasper’s sex was eager, damp, plumped with arousal and achingly sensitive, but she still had control. There was no cock straining for release; she had not everted.

Well, they were going to have to change that.

“Jasper, what are you doing with that uniform still on?”

A grunt.

“Well, phase it off. It’s not that hard. Don’t you be cranky at me.”

Sheepish, Jasper obeyed without complaint this time. The darkness of the room was torn asunder as Jasper’s uniform dissolved into light. Glowing beads flitted away and faded, leaving her bare, ruddy skin behind. The dark flooded back into all the crevices and hidden corners of the room once more, draping the three of them like a veil.

Ah, now, Pearl could feel the welling arousal between Jasper’s legs with no barriers. Wet and sappy, soaked so thoroughly that it matted down the hair curling on her mons. It all seemed so _dramatic_ until she remembered that Jasper had been wet since she’d stepped off the shuttle though, considering all it took to reduce her to such a state were a few clever fingers on her thigh, perhaps it really was dramatic after all. Cupping Jasper in her hand, Pearl gave her a demonstrative squeeze. “Up with your hips,” she said. “Tilt them back so I can see you. Why are you shy all of a sudden? Let me see.”

With a moan, Jasper arched her back and canted her hips toward Pearl. She rocked onto the tips of her toes in a lecherous presentation of her sex—even more lecherous when Pearl used both hands to further spread her open—while her face remained dutifully buried between Peridot’s thighs. Juggling the needs and demands of both Pearl and Peridot was a balancing act to be sure, but Jasper was proving to be skilled.

Pearl made herself at home there beside Jasper’s quivering flanks. She palmed at her labia with a possessive confidence, as if stroking the fur of a beloved pet. One finger roamed round and round Jasper’s clit, making idle circles as she spoke. “Good girl,” Pearl said. “Is this the first time Peridot has seen you like this? Obedient?”

A ripple went through Jasper’s body, starting at her shoulders and workings its way through her form.

Still Pearl teased. “You’re a big bad quartz until the moment I put my hands on you. Then you melt.” While her fingers worked their mischief, she searched through the dusk to find Peridot’s gaze. She found it. She held it. Though her eyes were groggy and glazed, Peridot was paying attention. Good. She wanted her to understand. Pearl put a finger to her chin and mused, “Peridot wanted you in her. I should let you take her. What do you think?”

Jasper lost composure and her legs buckled beneath her. “Let me,” she gasped. She struggled back onto the tips of her toes and thrust her lapping tongue back where it belonged.

Two fingers, now, attended to Jasper’s clit. Pearl rolled it between her thumb and forefinger in a soaking, frictionless dance. “What do you think, Peridot?”

With lips parted and chest heaving, Peridot floundered in a rare moment of mute limbo. Her mouth moved, yet no words came out. Her eyes rolled up and her chest rose off the bed as if being pulled by a string, like her living essence was about to come bursting out of her mouth. Instead, a cry ripped from her throat. Heavy mechanical limbs came to clamp around Jasper’s head. They crashed together, metal on metal, like the great gong clash punctuating the end of a symphony.

Pearl was nonplussed. She waited until the calm settled and the breath returned to Peridot’s lungs to quip, “Already? That was fast.”

The flush on her face glistened with sweat. “That,” she panted, “was round _one_. I am equipped for multiple sessions.”

“I should hope so.”

“As I seem to recall, you can do the same.”

So that’s how it was going to be. Pearl had suffered hundreds of orgasms on the ship back from Earth, and Peridot had been privy to all of it. Now Peridot jabbed at the very wound she helped create by so flippantly equating torture to pleasure. The mood threatened to curdle and a sour frown crept in around the edges of Pearl’s smirk. Peridot certainly had a lot to learn. No matter. This was not the end. Pearl tossed her head with renewed determination and said, “Jasper, come here.”

Like a mountain rising from ancient slumber, Jasper pushed herself up from the bed. All her mussed hair and shrouded beauty fell into place as she stood upright and turned to Pearl with an abandoned expression. Her tongue was thrust between her teeth and her mouth painted in iridescence.

Pearl could scarcely resist it. She leaned up to kiss her and share in the flavor of Peridot’s release.

How interesting. She really was sweet after all. Peridot was full of surprises.

Leaning into Jasper’s chest as their lips parted, she asked, “You want her?”

Jasper pressed back against her, hands coming to grip Pearl’s thighs and backside. A clear ‘yes.’

“Let’s get you ready. Are you almost ready?” She squeezed a hand between their bodies, searching. She only needed to follow the heat until she found the split of Jasper’s vulva again and, beyond the sentry outer lips, all the folds beneath. Her clit was swollen as ever, pushed far beyond the hood as if straining for touch. And yet for every measure awaiting Pearl’s caress here, there was so much lurking beneath. “Oh, yes. You’re ready, aren’t you?”

Their embrace lingered. They clung to each other and rocked back and forth, as if dancing to some rhythm they could not hear. Like the story of the ocean and the sandy beach, Pearl gave in and Jasper overtook her, only for Jasper to relent and for Pearl to gather her right back up. She could feel the humidity of Jasper’s breath against her shoulder where she hooked her head, bowed and compliant. Pearl turned to kiss her cheek, then plucked at her clit with all the deft skill of a maiden at her loom. Her fingers promised delights and satisfaction and her whispered words promised Jasper that she was a good girl, she was so good, and she could just let it go.

She didn’t let go immediately. Pearl suspected it was because Jasper liked being held like this, being touched like this, and she knew that when she finally everted it would end. She hoped the kisses scattered on her face would remind her that she could always come back to this place. It was hers whenever she wanted it to be.

“I’ll take good care of you. Give it to me.”

That was the final push. Jasper’s hips tensed and Pearl could feel the length sliding out against her palm. She grasped it around the shaft and helped to ease it out—though it hardly needed help—inch by inch, until she could feel it rising up between them. It was scorching to the touch, burning with all the molten desire Jasper had trapped inside her for so long. She could smell it. Iron and leather, tinged with desert musk.

Jasper faltered. Her breath hitched and her arms tightened around Pearl. Greedy, desirous hands moved to claim every bit of her they could reach.

Pearl knew where this was going. And while it was very tempting, they were here for a reason.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she giggled. “No, no. Whine at me all you want, but you’re not here to fuck me. Come on, take a look.” She took Jasper’s head in both hands and, with a considerable amount of force required, she turned her to look at Peridot.

Peridot still sprawled on the bed. Watching. One knee was hiked up and resting haphazardly on a pillow and her hair no longer resembled anything kempt. She wore the expression of a cat that had just woken up from a nap to find that it had no idea where it was, but did not particularly care. When she saw their attention turned to her, she blinked once, twice. Then, without preamble, she spread her legs open in clear invitation. “I don’t appreciate being made to wait.”

“Go get her.”

Jasper pounced.

The mattress springs shrieked as Peridot yelled in surprise, but very soon it all gave way to titters and growls and coos. They became a tangle of blundering hands and excited little noises, a whirlwind of juvenile energy as they pulled at each other. It was almost as if neither had touched or been touched before, and they were trying to figure it out for the first time and they needed to figure it out now, now, now. Then came the joined sigh when they finally locked together.

Pearl could have felt jealous, as she often was with Rose before, but the well of insecurity that often fueled her envy was somehow dry. Perhaps it was because of the way Jasper looked at her and the kiss that still lingered on her lips. Perhaps it was the beauty of the romances she’d fostered with Garnet and Amethyst once she no longer had Rose to cling to. Whatever the reason, Pearl was proud of herself as she took a step back and watched. So proud, she was, that the bitter flavor of resentment never came to bite at her tongue.

Oh, Jasper’s ass looked so nice as she rutted into Peridot. Her muscles created rippling, dimpled valleys as she thrust with all the strength she had, punctuated and triumphant.

“ _Oof_ ,” Peridot grunted. “ _Ye-ah! Ah!_ ”

Lucky Peridot, Pearl thought to herself. She knew what it felt like to be beneath Jasper in that blissful surrender. She wondered if Jasper felt a similar sense of surrender, knowing she could trust her partners to keep her safe and satisfied until the end, knowing that the growing heat inside of her would not go unattended to.

Ah, but if Jasper was beginning to swell, she needed to make her move.

Pearl set a hand on the small of Jasper’s back. “Can you turn over? I want to see.”

What followed was not the most graceful of maneuvers. A lot of shuffling and floundering ensued as they switched positions, some cursing, and a frantic, awkward shimmy as Jasper almost slipped out of Peridot entirely and they fought to stay together. They would not be pulled apart. When Jasper finally collapsed onto her back and Peridot lay astride her hips, the turbulence calmed. They paused to catch their breaths.

Peridot trembled as though she was cold. Hunched, eyes closed. Her limb enhancers braced her against Jasper’s lower belly as if they were the only thing that held her upright.

Then a hand came to caress Peridot’s hip. It stroked down, from waist to knee, and then back up again. It was a lover’s question.

Peridot opened her eyes again. They roamed Jasper’s face. She took a breath, rocked her hips up, and with a carnal rhythm, began to ride. Pearl could see the velvet blue petals of her sex spread around the girth of Jasper’s cock every time she lifted up and heard the whisper of skin on skin as she sank back down. Not all the way, though. Peridot never made it down to the base of Jasper’s shaft. Perhaps a good three or four inches remained unsheathed even as she lowered herself to as much as she could take. She was small, not built for this. But oh, she tried anyway. Stubborn.

That was when Jasper reached around and grabbed two palmfuls of Peridot’s ass with shameless enthusiasm. She kneaded them, spread them, dug her fingers into the plush flesh. For all her hard edges, Peridot was surprisingly soft where it counted. Voluptuous, even. Her breasts bounced as she moved, pert and full, and would have been the envy of her cohort.

Strange to think that, back in her days in basic training, Peridot might have been known by the others as ‘that peridot with the nice tits.’ Or maybe ‘that peridot with the nice ass.’ Or maybe just ‘the slutty one.’

Pearl wondered what Peridot had looked like before she’d cut her arms and legs from her body and replaced them with machine. She wondered whether she’d done the deed during her basic training or after. Perhaps Jasper knew. Pearl had never thought to ask. In fact, Pearl hadn’t really given Peridot’s limb enhancers much thought until Jasper began talking about them one evening while they lay in each other’s company. Many things were said, much of which Pearl did not recall, but she remembered being shocked at the idea of a gem mutilating herself voluntarily.

For all the things she knew about Peridot, Pearl couldn’t yet say she understood her. She was a mess of paradoxes: dangerous but inept, intelligent but clueless, efficient yet disastrously disorganized, flesh and metal, sensual but in an inexplicably bizarre way—the list went on and on. And now, tonight, one more paradox to add to the list: friend and foe.

Pearl glanced over to the communicator to ensure that, yes, the red light was still on. It was framed up nicely and recording. With everything going so well, it seemed that now was as good a time as ever for her to make her move. She sidled up alongside the coupling pair, hands behind her back. She leaned down to Peridot far too innocently. “How are you enjoying yourself?”

Annoyed, Peridot opened one eye to regard her. The irritation sloshed in her voice. “I’m exceedingly close to another orgasm, why do you ask?”

“How do you feel about letting us take your limb enhancers off?”

“Why?” Peridot snapped.

Pearl simpered. From the depths of her sweater, she produced the slim, expertly-fashioned electrode wand and turned it on. The narrow electrode lit up with a violet heartbeat.  “I wouldn’t want to ruin your circuits.” She raked her finger across the sloped tip of the electrode and an arc of energy followed. Her finger tingled and the muscles in her hands tensed in a pleasant loss of control. The dosage was calculated, precise. Just enough.

Confusion turned to comprehension. Comprehension turned to awe. Were there stars in Peridot’s eyes? Maybe for half a second, but it was difficult to tell when she was scrambling up so quickly she became nothing more than a green blur. Her fingers jammed against the closure of the limb enhancers, searching for the release. She couldn’t get them off fast enough. “You get my legs, Jasper. And don’t lose them under the bed like last time!”

Jasper and Peridot did have to come apart to get the limb enhancers off. With surprising cooperation, they worked together in a mad clamber that looked like a dance they had done many times before. Soon, hydraulic steam clouded the air. It smelled like engine oil and ozone.

One arm. One leg. Then the other.

Piece by piece, Peridot came apart.

Pearl had never seen her vulnerable like this. All of her gadgets and laser cannons and portable generators were stripped away to nothing more than flesh. The sheared ends of her limbs were raw where the physical manifestation of her body just ended there at the joint, like it was confused about what it was supposed to do after the matter had been cauterized away. It wasn’t a gem defect, just a physical alteration that somehow Peridot had managed to subject herself to without being vaporized.

Jasper had mentioned something about stabilizers.

If Pearl’s experience was anything to go by, that mustn’t have been pleasant. And lo and behold, the results were jarring the first time Pearl looked upon them.

Peridot caught her staring. Perhaps she’d been expecting it. Even breathless as she was, she still managed a sneer. “What’s your problem? Never seen an artificially enhanced gem before?” She sounded defensive.

“I haven’t,” Pearl said. She knew it was rude to stare. Peridot did not deserve to be gawked at, no matter what the circumstance. It made her ashamed that she’d done so in the first place—the rebellion was all about accepting off colored gems, some of which looked different than others. Peridot just happened to look different, too.

Strange, then, that Jasper, a gem so proudly perfect and once so proudly loyal to the Diamond Authority’s dedication to prejudice, held Peridot in her arms with endearment. Those protective arms kept her stable and upright as she kissed a line up the bared side of Peridot’s throat. Her teeth betrayed her carnal thirst, but her lips spoke of devotion.

“Are you going to use that thing, or are you just going to hold it?” Peridot eyed the electrode. Impatient, voracious.

“Just one moment,” Pearl said. “Let’s get Jasper back inside you, hmm?”

No complaints about that suggestion. Peridot all but leaned into Jasper’s embrace as she took possession of her body, holding her against her chest like she was precious. She gripped Peridot by the thighs and lowered her back down where she belonged.

With her lips parted in a sigh, Peridot watched it all happen. She couldn’t look away as Jasper sheathed herself once more in a gush of slick and pre-spend. Her sex was already so open, so welcoming, and when Jasper’s cock found its home, Peridot’s head dipped back in a picture of ecstasy.

“Oh, _stars_ , that’s good.”

Jasper murmured her agreement and began to thrust.

Their joining was a thing of beauty now that Pearl could watch it happen. She had a wonderful view of Peridot’s spread thighs and folds and the way the ridges on Jasper’s cock pierced her anew each time. Their fluids mingled and dripped onto the mattress.

Still, Peridot ogled the electrode in Pearl’s hand with a greedy glint in her eyes.

Subtlety was not one of Peridot’s strong suits.

Pearl came to stand before her, then, so close she could feel the heat radiating from their bodies. “Try this out first to make sure it’s not too much,” she said. “Let me see your…your arm, I suppose.” Or what was left of her arm. She hoped the way she stammered over herself wasn’t too noticeable.

Luckily, Peridot didn’t seem to care. She held out her arm.

She brought the electrode close, watched the electricity arc into Peridot’s limb, watched the muscles in her shoulders twitch as she sucked air in through her clenched teeth.

Pearl pulled it away. “Did it hurt?” She asked. “Too much?”

The expression on Peridot’s face was a picture of rapture. “Not enough,” she croaked.

Then, from the depths of the darkness, Jasper rumbled. “She likes it hard. Make her feel it.”

“Mmhmm,” Peridot sighed in agreement.

Well, then. Pearl would have to accommodate. Thank goodness for the voltage calibrator she’d installed in her toy. Turning the dial was all she needed to kick up the intensity. Perhaps this would satisfy the insatiable. “Ready to try again?”

Peridot puffed her chest out. “Try my tits next.”

Normally, Pearl wouldn’t immediately jump to such a sensitive area, but it was difficult to refuse Peridot when she was so demanding like this. And as much as Pearl hated to admit it, her breasts really were quite lovely. Each of her nipples was ringed with little raised bumps, standing triumphantly against that dark green hue. There was a ripeness to the way her breasts cradled against her chest, reminiscent of a plump fruit that might have been a delicious mouthful. They presented themselves as the ideal spot to tease and suddenly Pearl couldn’t help but wonder what kind of noises Peridot would make when they had some amperage jolting through them.

Pearl was not disappointed.

A grating howl filled the room as Peridot arched up. For a moment, Pearl thought she had crossed the line until the scream simmered into an unhinged, delighted chuckle.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” she said. “I _like_ that.”

“You do, do you?” Pearl twirled the electrode in her hand and, for a moment, it felt very much like her spear. “So now what do you say?”

The confusion on Peridot’s face was expected. Her lips curled, faltering only when Jasper thrust up into her with particularly robust force. “What do you— _nnh_ —mean?”

“What do you say to someone who’s made something nice for you? I made this for you, after all.”

Breathless sounds from Jasper. Was it laughter? Probably; she was smiling wide. It seemed she caught on to Pearl’s game before Peridot and found it highly amusing.

Peridot, not so much. “I don’t understand your cloddy demands. Is now really the time to— _ah!_ ”

Jasper brought a hand down on Peridot’s ass with a smack. “Say ‘thank you,’ you brat.”

“Hey!” Peridot twisted around and gave Jasper an offended look. “What? She’s a pearl.”

Enough was enough. Pearl wielded the electrode like a weapon, swinging it down until it hovered just inches from the exposed spread of Peridot’s clit. She held it there, hoping Peridot could feel but a hint of the buzzing energy against her arousal, but only that. “I _am_ a pearl,” she said. “You’ll thank me when I pleasure you and you’ll ask me nicely if you want me to do it again.”

An expression of shock gripped Peridot’s face as she watched the electrode travel. There was recognition and a flare of excitement. Devious and unabashed, her hips snapped up, hoping to steal a few volts.

Pearl was ready. She pulled the toy just out of reach. “I said, ‘you’ll thank me.’”

Frustrated noises poured forth. Yes, Peridot put up a fuss now, but Pearl could tell the wind was leaving her sails. She eventually uttered a begrudging, “Thank you.”

“And?”

This time, Peridot only closed her eyes in resignation. “Please. More, please.”

“Right here?”

“Fuck yes.” Peridot bit down on her lower lip, anticipation gnawing at her already.

Pearl rewarded her soundly. She watched as the vivid static of the electrode connected with the hues of Peridot’s pouting clit, the zap of the electricity punctuated by an indescribable noise from Peridot’s throat. Her thighs twitched, her chest heaved. It looked like pain and it sounded like pain, yet it transcended such a primitive sensation. Algolagnic. If pain was a sprouting seed, then this was a great oak tree with its gnarled bows and infinite branching limbs, climbing into the sky until it left the earth behind.

She pulled the electrode away and Peridot fell slack and shivering against Jasper’s chest.

It took a while for Peridot to speak again. When she did, her mouth moved in slow, deliberate shapes, as if she was drunk. “I think…I think I came.” Peridot sounded surprised. “I think?”

“My, aren’t you getting lucky tonight,” Pearl said.

“You came. I felt you,” Jasper groaned. Her grip tightened around Peridot’s waist. “Now say ‘thank you, Pearl.’”

“Thank you, Pearl.” Peridot let her head fall back onto Jasper’s shoulder. Her body was limp, drained. One eye cracked open. “C-can you wait just a moment before you do it again?”

Ah. So Peridot had limits after all. Pleased with herself, Pearl replied as sweetly as ever. “Of course. You just tell me when.” She was content to step back and watch until Peridot called for her again.

Jasper’s belly had grown large. It pressed up against Peridot’s back as an incessant reminder of what was to come, as if the bullying pace of her thrusts wasn’t enough. The sound of their fucking was sloppy. Slurping. There was no friction between the two of them to speak of, so Jasper just made up for it with passion.

“How much longer can you wait, Jasper?” Pearl asked. She reached over Peridot’s head to cup Jasper’s chin.

Half-lidded, golden eyes burned back. Two nuclear suns churning and hurtling into oblivion. That alone was answer enough.

An elbow prodded at the front of Pearl’s sweater. Peridot, in no uncertain terms, demanded her attention. “Again,” she wheezed. “I’m ready for more.”

Later, Pearl would have to instruct Peridot on less grabby ways to get her attention. For now, however, she took pity and tended to her with patience. She brought the electrode down once more, this time for an experimental little tap against the inside of Peridot’s thigh. A reminder of its power.

Peridot gasped and rolled her hips. “Again!”

She moved inwards, placing a spark right there at the furthest boundaries of her vulva, right where that blue tint overtook the green.

Another plea whispered under Peridot’s breath. Her visor began slipping down the bridge of her nose.

‘Round and ‘round, Pearl blessed Peridot with electric bites until the welts that remained were as numerous as her freckles. Small ones, benign ones. Ones that could be soothed with a gentle touch should either of them wish to do so, but Peridot was far too busy reveling in the numb burn that worked its way closer and closer to her core.

Jasper suddenly changed her grip. Her hold on Peridot’s thighs was not enough to satisfy her in her newfound frenzy, and so she reached around and grabbed her between her legs instead. Her grasp was clumsy and her fingers splayed exactly where Pearl did not want them, as they all but covered Peridot’s sex. Groping her, holding her. Possessive and invading as at least one finger—maybe two—slipped inside Peridot’s entrance alongside Jasper’s cock and curled up, hooking into her.

It was a barbaric way to hold her prey. Everything from the grip on her cunt to the way Jasper’s teeth sank into the back of Peridot’s neck was vicious.

It was also entirely welcomed.

“Jasper!” Peridot cried. “Do it. _Do it_.”

From the sound that ripped from Jasper’s chest, she was already well on her way. She shouted her release like it was her greatest triumph, announcing it without shame. And, sure enough, the first gush spilled out around her cock soon after. Milky and thick and rich with iron. Pearl admired it from her vantage point.

Jasper’s hips twitched up. Her muscles clenched and tightened with involuntary fervor. Pearl could only see the base of her cock where it breached the slit of Peridot’s entrance, but she could still watch it pulse and flutter with peristalsis, injecting herself as deep as she could, as she was wont to do, as she was bred to do. And then what followed, the inevitable ooze of release that had nowhere else to go spilling out all around. Each surge of Jasper’s hips led here, to this overflow of spend that coated Peridot’s folds.

Yet there, pressing betwixt Jasper’s fingers, was something Pearl did not expect to see.

From the look on Peridot’s face, she didn’t expect to see it, either.

“Oh, fuck,” she swore under her breath. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Between Jasper’s fore and middle finger, Peridot was everted or in the process of everting. Pearl couldn’t immediately tell. It seemed too small at first, especially compared to Jasper. Yet when Jasper moved her hand away to paw at Peridot’s breasts instead, it became clear that Peridot was simply small.

“Oh,” Pearl said.

What transpired next was a hesitant standoff of sorts. Pearl stood with a finger demurely set upon her lower lip and Peridot gazed on with a darkness bristling at the corners of her expression. Her hair hung down into her face in a way that was unhinged enough to make her appear truly dangerous.

“You’re not any bigger,” Peridot defended.

“Well, I don’t have a—” Pearl caught herself. Whether she did or didn’t have a proper cock wasn’t the point. Arguing semantics would only confirm what Peridot feared. Pearl had been intimate with enough gems to know that shields went up to protect them from all those terrible feelings of inadequacy. But shields were no fun in the bedroom. So Pearl put aside her surprise and all the semantics to reach past Peridot’s shields the only way she knew how. “It’s a lovely shade of indigo. I don’t think I’ve seen one quite like it. May I?” She held up the electrode.

The peace offering worked. Peridot nodded and let her head dip back.

Pearl turned the voltage down another click to just be on the safe side. And then to be even safer, she turned it down again.

Peridot’s cock really was unlike any she’d seen before, and Pearl had seen quite a lot. Perhaps it had something to do with her being an Era 2 gem, or perhaps she really was just that unique, but the ridges that usually stair-stepped down the underside flared out along each side instead. There was something almost aquatic to the way it looked. Like gills. At the very tip of the length, the shaft seemed to bud open, revealing the bead of the clitoris that Pearl had been toying with before.

It really was a lovely shade of indigo.

Pearl let the electrode hover at the base of Peridot’s cock, watching as the static leaned toward flesh, pushing for that connection.

She must have felt the hum, because she moaned and clenched around Jasper, forcing another slurry of come to pour forth. Her arms stretched out to either side in surrender. When she leaned backwards, Pearl could see the smallest hint of a bulge forming in the depths of Peridot’s abdomen. Perhaps it was Jasper inside her, or perhaps it was the growing pool of her own release. Most likely it was both.

“How much do you want?” Pearl asked. She ghosted the toy up the underside of Peridot’s cock.

“More.”

“What do you—?”

Pearl didn’t even get the entire sentence out before Peridot blurted, “ _Please!_ ” She shouted until the cords in her neck strained. “ _Please and thank you and fuck, Pearl, just please!_ ” Peridot sounded like she was sobbing, but her teeth were gritted into a grin and, if she’d had toes, Pearl was sure they would be curling. A low chant of “please, please, please, please…” punctuated every second. She droned the word as if it was the only one she knew. And maybe, just maybe, in the moment it really was the only one she could remember.  

Her belly was acutely swollen now. That was fast, Pearl thought. The irony of the incubating shape was not lost on her, yet she held her tongue against unsavory comments. Instead, prepared for the impending release. “Jasper,” she said, “can you let Peridot bite down on your finger? I don’t want her biting on her tongue.”

With slick-wet fingers, Jasper reached up in search of Peridot’s babbling mouth. She found it easily enough. It was open wide in a manic smile that quickly accommodated two fingers, though never did stop trying to chant her newfound plea.

“ _Please, please, please, please…_ ”

Pearl steadied her hand. “You’re asking so nicely,” she said, though she was fairly sure Peridot was no longer listening to her, or to anything for that matter. “You’re asking so nicely, so I’m going to give you the last little push you need.”

“ _Please, please—!_ ”

And with that, she dotted the electrode against the tip of Peridot’s cock. The static connected with a buzz and then the world collapsed.

Peridot screamed loud and long and wailing. Her torso sprang taut against each and every one of her ribs, those bony columns that caged her cry. She crumpled inwards, head buckling down to her chest and knees pulling up so forcefully that even Jasper had a hard time keeping hold of her. But then she was coming. And then she was laughing, laughing and shuddering and laughing some more until the visor fell from her face and clattered to the ground.

There was an intimate pride in being able to bring another to release. Pearl felt it pulse through her now, an inexplicable series of sensations and thoughts that, before today, she never would have equated with Peridot. But sex sometimes did this, didn’t it? It surprised her, even now.

As Peridot continued to fall apart, Jasper was there to catch her. She was far along enough with her own release to have the sense to keep her upright and nibble a kiss into the crook of her neck. They locked together.

Pearl watched, fascinated with the way their release mingled together—stippled white and iridescent, swirling jade. She could not believe how beautiful Peridot’s was. It shimmered and rippled as it spilled over her belly and thighs, creating a vortex of galaxies every time the fluid hit turbulence in the creases where their bodies met. It was mesmerizing. She wished that she had time to scoop up a little bottle’s worth as a keepsake, or maybe just snap a quick picture. The glowing red light on her left, however, reminded her that she would have a memento of this after all.

“ _Oh stars_ ,” Peridot finally recovered her voice. “ _Oh stars, oh fuck, oh stars!_ ”

Jasper purred in response. That deep, rumbling, soothing sound washed over the room like a lullaby, a declaration that all was well.

Their orgasms slowed and faded over the next few minutes. The intensity of the encounter settled into something more intimate, quiet, something that Pearl felt would be a violation to record. She tasked herself with switching off the recording on the communicator and dismantling the hastily assembled stand she’d made from scrap. When she was satisfied with her clean-up, she turned back around to see Jasper and Peridot had made a home for themselves on the bed. One might have referred to it as ‘cuddling,’ but Pearl was still hesitant to use such a word for a pair so volatile, but it certainly did _look_ like cuddling. It looked as if they’d scooted away from the majority of their sticky mess at some point and Jasper was sprawled out on her back with one arm draped over Peridot’s shoulder—and back and waist and pretty much all of her because Peridot was so small like this without her limb enhancers. She all but disappeared tucked up under that arm but for her head, which rested upon one of Jasper’s breasts like it was her own personal pillow. They appeared quiescent or, at least, Jasper most certainly was. She was snoring.

For a good twenty seconds or so, Pearl stood and looked over the two of them. She checked her heart, she checked her mind.

No jealousy. No pain. Maybe a little annoyance at the mess they’d both left, but she could deal with that later. What struck her the most was that Jasper, even quiescent, rested with her other arm spread wide open and tilted in Pearl’s direction as if waiting for her. It beckoned Pearl closer, urging her to come fill that vulnerable space at Jasper’s side where she left herself open. How could she refuse?

With a small smile, Pearl padded over to the bed. She scanned the mattress for any unsavory mess, but the majority was over on Peridot’s side where it belonged. Then she crawled into the crux of Jasper’s arm and nestled into the warmth that was left there for her.

A hitch in Jasper’s snore marked the brief moment her quiescence was broken. Her arm tightened reflexively to pull Pearl flush up against her body and deeper into that heat. Then she was back to her quiescence as if she’d never left.

Pearl rested her head against Jasper’s right breast and breathed in the smell of her. Sweat and arousal still lingered, both familiar and intoxicating. A new scent, however, undercut the overwhelming presence of Jasper, one that was sweet like almonds and oxidized kerosene. She’s been close enough to their sex to know that this scent was distinctly Peridot’s.

It was about the time when Pearl finally settled into her cozy embrace that she looked up and came face-to-face with Peridot, still lounging against the opposite breast, and locked eyes. They stayed like that for several of Jasper’s rising and falling breaths, regarding each other with neither amity nor vitriol. Just watching. Just looking. Was it closer to two beasts sizing each other up before pulling out their claws, or a gentle truce? Pearl couldn’t tell. Though she had a feeling that without Jasper between them, the answer would have been much more readily apparent.

“She snores,” Pearl stated the obvious and hoped it would break the tension.

It did. Peridot sighed, “Yeah, she does.” She tilted her head up, chin still cushioned in the plush of Jasper’s left breast, to gaze at her quiescent face. Without her visor, her expression was bare and her voice raw and wistful. “Look at her. She’s everything I ever wanted in a quartz. She’s perfect.”

Pearl didn’t know what to say. The sudden sincerity was unexpected and the timing was strange, so she just agreed. “Yes, she is.”

“You don’t understand,” Peridot said. “She is _perfect_.”

Maybe she didn’t understand, at least not on the intricate, geological level that Peridot devoted herself to. ‘Perfect’ meant something different to them both.

“Quartz gems aren’t the most rational. I find faults with Jasper’s logic on nearly a daily basis. They told us in training, though, that we should always trust the instincts of our escorts and soldiers, that quartz gems have the power to rationalize the irrational. That when it came to software and injector engines and fuel capacity, we may know more, but in every other respect, our quartz gem would take the lead and we were supposed to trust her.” Peridot still gazed into Jasper’s resting face. Reverent. “I trust her. And she, for whatever reason, trusts you.”

Their eyes met again.

“And she trusts you,” Pearl murmured.

Peridot nodded slowly. “I admit I may have underestimated you. I will have to run more analysis, of course, but my current understanding of the situation is more…complicated than I had originally anticipated.” She paused, her mouth twisting into a craggy frown. “By the way, what are you going to do with that device?”

“Device?”

“You know. The thing. Your Electric Appliance of Pleasure and Pain?”

In spite of everything, Pearl caught an unexpected chuckle on the back of her hand. “That’s quite a title you’ve given it,” she said. “I’m not sure what to do with it, though.”

Peridot nodded again, this time pulling her lips between her teeth as if trying to hold back. The attempt didn’t last long. “Can I keep it?” she blurted.

The corner of Pearl’s lips threatened to curl up. She didn’t fight it. “Of course.”

“Good. It would be a shame for something so utilitarian to be dismantled. You managed to construct a very serviceable apparatus.” The complement—because it was indeed a complement—hung in the air. Nothing followed for the longest time, long enough for a sheepish tint of green to rise on her cheeks. “Oh,” she said. “And thank you.” With that, Peridot turned her head further into Jasper’s breast and disappeared.

**Works inspired by this one:**

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